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Hokay, I’m installing Lion on the desktop. According to my research, all the essentials on the box should be safe. But you never know. So desktop first, laptop after everything checks out.
4G download! Over half an hour to install! Shnykees. Also, flipping the vertical scroll from conventional to natural (scroll up = page moves up) will take some getting used to. But I guarantee that’s where the world will flock. Oh… wait… the US still uses imperial measurement. So maybe the world except for the States? Ha.
8 minutes to go…
Update: all good! Apps – check; plugins – check; vertical scroll – surprisingly natural. I’ll leave it for a while before updating the laptop, keep playing around, but so far so good.
Cut Action Media & Chaos Complex: Award Winning – Twice!
First and foremost: thank you to everyone that voted in the People’s Telly Awards. They get over 13000 entries yearly, and hundreds of thousands of votes are counted.
This year, the crowd and the judges were with us. The Kasho Intro won the popular vote in Non-Broadcast Production (which seems to be the most competitive). We won the Telly Awards highest honour, the Silver Trophy. Thank you!
But there’s more!
We also won the Bronze Trophy for our 3D production of the Redken Symposium promo, which I can’t actually show you yet. Trust me, it’s awesome. Award winning, even.
These victories mean the world to us, and we can’t thank you enough. These are the first awards for us (officially), and we dedicate them to you. With all sincerity.
- Lee Baran and Adrian Taverner
In related news we’ve started a Vimeo channel for hosting our video (the ones we’re allowed to show) and the CAM website is slowly coming together. Check out the Vimeo channel here.
Here’s the Telly Awards Silver Trophy winner:
Lend me your eyeballs! As part of our campaign to make our status in the US more permanent (so we can make movies and tv shows) we need to win awards, so on very short notice we submitted our intro for the Kasho Shears promo video to the Telly Awards People’s Choice category. Please vote! I will put you in our next movie! Click: the Kasho Intro. Vote now. Vote often. Vote awesome.
As some background, our company exists in several guises (these websites are all in various stages of construction, so bear with me):
Fuel Education centers around Chris Baran and exists to further his brand and promote principle based hair education. His system has influenced the careers of hundreds of thousands of hairdressers all over the world. My role is in business development, copy editing, graphics, managing web dev, post-production audio, and lighting and shooting on the day.
Cut Action Media is specifically the production arm of that company, catering to video production in the beauty industry. It’s comprised of Lee Baran, Steve French, and myself. Lee directs and produces, Steve handles location sound, much of the editing, some of the post audio, and mans a camera when needed. I light and shoot, lead web dev, and head up the post audio department. We are aggressively looking to expand our client list and our team – the sooner we can get Lee off the edit desk, the sooner we can hit the next level.
Lee and I are also in the midst of designing an app in cooperation with some fine Italian folk. This division of the company has the working title Plickable Apps (making our app “a plickable” app, you see?) and by our estimates, it has the potential to comfortably provide for all our retirements. This app is that awesome. It’s also going to cost about $125,000 to develop. And that’s version 1.0. If you know any VCs, send them my way. All this sexy beast needs is marketing.
Chaos Complex is Lee Baran, Matt Kennedy, and me. This hive of creativity is the entertainment. We are currently shopping a pilot script and series bible for a show called Almost Broken. It’s very good. And the primary and secondary potential of the key components are irresistible. We think this show will make TV history. We also have two other series and at least as many features in progress.
If you’re still with me, it may have occurred to you that the Kasho clip seems like Cut Action Media territory, even though we submitted it as Chaos Complex. You a sharp one. Our long term plan is to apply for permanent residency with a business plan as Chaos Complex, and winning awards (and other positive press) looks golden on this sort of application.
First – yay Royal Wedding. Great dress. Kate looked ethereal. William was wearing the reddest coat ever. Apparently two billion people watched worldwide. Wow. I was content with seeing a couple clips at a much more reasonable hour, but I did happen to see their kiss on the balcony – and may I say both kisses (Two kisses! First time in history! Gasp!) looked sincere yet appropriately chaste. Nice.
But anyway, enough about other people. It’s all about me around here. And my lifestyle isn’t what most people would call healthy. I eat out often, I thoroughly enjoy a refreshing pint, and there isn’t a lot of opportunity for working out. I have no intention of giving up beer, and it’s just not practical to think I might cut back on eating out, and I’m doing what I can to fit the workout into my day. Nevertheless, last week I was the heaviest I’ve ever been (I think). So four days ago I started this hCG thing, along with a moderate exercise program. So far so good. Only 43 days to my next bacon cheddar burger. HCG, so far as I understand, is a hormone that tells your body to go ahead and process its fat rather than cripple you with hunger or eat your muscles (the premise being that you’re subsisting on famine-level calories – about 500 a day). Apparently this switch-flip is what happens with pregnant mammals like people and horses. I’m still feeling hungry off and on, but I think this is as much about habits and breaking the carb addiction as it is about actual hunger. It’s certainly not as bad as it was sometimes before starting the drops. HCG weight loss is pretty controversial, but even the strongest opponents have to admit it works at least as well as a placebo, and I reckon six weeks of retraining the habits is as good a goal as any.
Interesting side effect: it’s true that sugar is addictive. I’ve all but eliminated it from my diet and there are mild headaches.
Another interesting side effect: I’m appreciating every bite. I eat more slowly, which gives my stomach a chance to tell my brain it’s got what it needs. I’m satisfied with less, and I appreciate it more.
Down side: it takes planning. Can’t just hit a bodega for whatever sammich they have handy. Snacking has to be anticipated, and it’s actually necessary. Ah well. Maybe it will practice me up for keeping the rest of my life more organized.
In other news, with all the blog breakages (and the business-motivated grudging return to FB) and such, I haven’t actually mentioned that I now wear glasses:
I think I’m handsomer now.
Also, yesterday we picked up a dolly and track. To go with our sexy new AF-100 camera. For those keeping score, our outfit still needs apple boxes and flags, but… that’s about it. We are a fully operational mother ship, complete with two broadcast quality video cameras with adapters for hundreds of lenses, a steadicam rig, plenty of lighting, and a digital post work flow on par with A-list indie studios. True story. We’re shooting a music video this weekend.
And it looks like spring is finally getting some traction in this town. Life is good on the 43rd floor.
Great ad. Really. But seriously, who in their right mind would want a Windows phone? I just do not understand you poor bastard Windows slaves.
Minutes spent missing Facebook since quitting 4 days ago: 0. Minutes spent missing how easy it is to keep in touch with everybody: more. But so far it feels worth it. Still waiting for you, Diaspora.
I’ve been saying for ages that Monster cables exist only to part retards from their money, but even I have to admit I didn’t know much about HDMI. Here’s the HDGuru with more.
Inside the HDMI cable scam
Choosing the HDTV that’s right for you
For example, HDMI cables, no matter what the box says, only push 60Hz. For someone who fights nausea staring at a 60Hz CRT monitor for too long, that’s a revelation. The important distinction is that there’s none of the brain-melting flicker of CRTs in LCD technology, so a 60Hz pipe is apparently fine for anything all the way up to 1080p 3D.
That said, TVs abound with Hz ranges from 60 all the way up to 480. I don’t pretend to follow how these two technologies play together, but I do know that moving objects (or a panning perspective) look better on higher speed (Hz = refresh rate) screens. Or do they? Consider this:
For the best LCD picture, either traditional or LED backlit, choose one with either a 120Hz or 240Hz refresh rate. However, all 1080p plasma sets produce artifact free, full 1080 line motion resolution. Panasonic’s V and Z series plasmas offer a 96Hz refresh rate that produces images free of the judder found in all 60 Hz panels (plasma and LCD) without the artifacts associated with 120/240Hz LED/LCDs.
(from Choosing the HDTV that’s right for you)
Fascinating.
Apparently back at the end of July, when I was travelling hither and yon, the Library of Congress gave the ok to jailbreaking iPhones. This doesn’t mean Apple has to make it easy, and it still might brick your phone (backups, people!), but it does mean a certain legitimization for the underground heroes at Dev Team.
Jailbreaking used to be a hair-raising adventure, requiring some delicate fiddling, and there was just no way to know what would happen to your baby. Now, it’s a swipe gesture and you’re done.
There can still be speedbumps, like losing your Facetime functionality, but the Dev Team has always moved pretty fast, and sure enough, it’s never long before they fix a thing… or improve on the original, such as making Facetime available over 3G. Hot. Then again, That’s what Fring does, multi-platform and no jailbreak required. So I’m still left with the one shining reason to jailbreak – ditching AT&T.
For sale: body parts (negotiable)
Price: CS5 Design Premium
It magicks.
My problem with the iPhone has always been that while it really is a pocket computer, and a surprisingly good one considering the baby 256 processor, users are neatly prevented from editing documents. You can’t take your job to the beach, because while you can certainly stay on top of email, there isn’t anything you can do with a .doc except look at it.
So a year or so ago, when rumours about an Apple tablet started picking up steam, I was interested. Surely now that deal-breaking gap would be closed. Imagine my consternation when detractors were proven right, and we really were offered a giant iPod, complete with chains to the app store and still no way to get any word processing done.
Where I used to think that the iPad probably wouldn’t find much of a home with the average consumer (it’s big, it’s not light, and you can’t stick a DVD in it, much less a thumb drive), I predicted that every professional would have to have one, from doctors (easy wifi access to fully detailed records) to mechanics (large HD tech specs) to dock workers (manifests and routing instructions). James Cameron would use one to watch his actors traverse their CG world in real time. When the iPad was revealed shackled to the app store, I was worried.
Not that I had to worry for long. That same day, Apple announced the iPad-optimized version of iWorks. That, plus the Citrix announcement that you’ll be able to run Windows 7 on it, implies heavily that you will have access to the file structure, more like the iPod than the iPhone.
I don’t have any interest in anything Windows (there’s nothing in my world that Mac and Snow Leopard can’t do better) but having that option means wider adoptability, and that means iPad is in a pretty good position. If I can mount it as a drive on my primary computers, then yes, I’m interested. And apparently there’s an available attachment for pulling pictures off your camera, and that means USB connectivity. If it’s 2-way… now we’re getting somewhere.
Do I need an iPad? Probably not. My shiny MacBook Pro travels well enough to set and back. Do I want one? Yes. Yes I do. Complete with unlocked 3G access and 64 gigs of memory. I will sew bigger pockets on my cargoes.
