Arranged Delirium

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve abandoned broadcast television via cable or dish for distribution via Internet. I’m doing this primarily through streaming Netflix and AppleTV. But because of Hulu contributors, their fight with Boxee, and their archaic position that folks shouldn’t watch TV on their TV’s, it’s somewhat difficult to access a limited number of shows.

The solution? A $69 cable from Kanex - simply display your web content on your TV. This had been a bit difficult with Apple’s implementation of the MiniDisplayPort - there were adaptors to HDMI and audio but you needed separate cabling. This resolves all that and puts it into one tandem cable. Not as convenient as simply viewing Hulu content via Boxee, but it does the trick…

As I await the introduction of the Apple tablet I’ve been reading a bit about some of the rumors. This article lists a few common perceptions and the subsequent comments make for interesting reading about how folks might use the product. I never cease to be amazed at how so many make the common fallacy of assuming that everyone will use a tool in exactly the same way…

The inventors of the CCD were awarded the Nobel Prize this week. Here’s some concise coverage from CNN with all the pertinent details. Why do you care? The CCD is the cornerstone of your digital camera and allowed us all to leave the cumbersome, analogue, world of film behind for easier, faster, and better quality digital photography.

Last week I butchered my in-class demo of the matrix shadow technique. I’m still not entirely sure what went wrong. Part of the problem is the projection system which is so bad it won’t display gradients effectively - but I have to accept responsibility for myself too. I just couldn’t seem to get it right. Particularly frustrating is the fact that its an excruciatingly simple technique! Basically this is nothing more than a serif font, rasterized and duplicated, then blurred in different ways. It’s a good example for building a basic understanding of filters and directional blurs. Here’s my improved version:

A better approach is to stroke the text with one pixel of Classic CRT Green to give it that masterful effect from the films…

Adobe has finally released an update for the Mac version of Photoshop Elements. Version 8 is now shipping and provides a nicely affordable way to edit imagery. You can find a review of the software at Macworld.

Photoshop is simply too expensive - even with an educational discount it’s over $200. Elements has 90% of the features for less than $80 (even lower with the educational discount). Additionally, the auto adjusting toolset of Elements makes it a more easy-to-use product for folks that just want to re-touch their images quickly, and not compose new works of art. It’s supposed to be shipping now, but they’ve missed the date; nonetheless I’d expect it to ship this month. This is a great tool for image editing on Windows as well as Mac, so If you are looking for an inexpensive but good image editing tool regardless of platform: this is it.