FireFox update kills me August 26, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: firefox, technology
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I updated to Firefox 3.0.1 on my home pc by accident tonight. It wasn’t until I saw the huge back button that I realised what I’d done. :(
Thank goodness I’d already gone through this pain and found solutions for it all while I was at work.
Take THAT, userfriendliness champions for Firefox. When will you learn that there are some people who want to see the old style stuff?
Wanted August 26, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: movies, people, rant
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So, StupendoMan and I went to see Wanted on Saturday night. It was a good movie overall. Amazing effects and vaguely plausible plot lines. Plenty of car chases, explosions, science, myth and escapism. Not too brain straining.
What DID piss me off was the old dude who was sitting behind me who either has parkinsons and cannot keep still, or has a severe case of stupidity and inconsiderate-ness because he has long legs and doesnt fit. What ever it was, he kept kicking my chair. I turned around and told his female companion and him off quite a few times. Just because they’re old, they think they can do anything they want. Pooheads.
User friendliness overkill August 12, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: rant, technology
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I have been suffering from a bit of bloat from firefox 2.x of late, so I figured, “hey, it’s been a little while, let’s try firefox 3, they should have ironed out any kinks by now”.
OMG! Thank god for the oldbar addon! It restored the “Awesome Bar” of firefox 3 to the neat, compact and still useful bar of firefox 2.
And also, thank goodness there are people out there that make compact themes and non sucky themes for firefox 3. Have you seen how GINORMOUS that default theme’s back button is? You’d think that they want people to always hit the back button. I’m running iFox Smooth. I’d have chosen the macfox II but it doesn’t work on firefox 3. :(
Enough with the pandering to the lame n00bs who don’t know what a back button is, or can’t find the delete key. That, or at least give power users the ability to restore things to a non pandering setting.
Olympics fakers! August 12, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: olympics, technology, TV
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Fakers! They faked it! No wonder it looked SHIT! I bet that one firework that actually looked like a footprint was the only one that was really from a camera.
from http://www.smh.com.au/news/latest-news/olympic-ceremony-faked-organisers/2008/08/11/1218306780009.html
A PART of the spectacular Beijing Olympics opening ceremony was faked, it has emerged.
As the ceremony got under way with a drummed countdown, viewers at home and watching giant screens inside the Bird’s Nest stadium saw a series of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceed above the city from Tiananmen Square.
What they did not realise was that they were watching computer graphics, digitally inserted into the coverage at the right moment.
The fireworks were there for real, outside the stadium. But those responsible for filming the extravaganza decided beforehand that it would be impossible to capture all 29 footprints from the air.
As a result, only the last footprint, which was visible from the camera stands inside the Bird’s Nest, was captured on film.
The trick was revealed in the Beijing Times. Gao Xiaolong, the head of the visual effects team, said it had taken almost a year to create the 55-second sequence.
Meticulous efforts were made to ensure it was as unnoticeable as possible. The team sought advice from the Beijing meteorological office on how to re-create the hazy effects of the city’s smog at night, and inserted a slight camera-shake effect to simulate filming from a helicopter. “Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks,” he said.
“But most of the audience thought it was filmed live – so that was mission accomplished.”
He said the main problem with trying to shoot the real thing was manoeuvring a helicopter to see all 29 footsteps in a row.
One adviser to the Beijing Olympic Committee defended the decision to use make-believe to impress the viewer. “It would have been prohibitive to have tried to film it live,” he said.
“We could not put the helicopter pilot at risk by making him try to follow the firework route.”
A spokeswoman for the committee said the final decision had been made by Beijing Olympic Broadcasting, a joint venture between the International Olympic Committee and local organisers that provides the main “feeds” of all Olympic events to viewers around the world.
“As far as we are concerned, we let off the fireworks. That’s what’s important to us,” she said.
Mr Gao said he was worried that technologically literate viewers who spotted the join might be critical. But the comments received online suggested admiration of the result.
Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony August 11, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: fake, olympics, technology, TV
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StupendoMan and I watched the opening ceremony on tv on Friday night. Well, we saw up til the athletes started parading around. I’d already read in the paper that Australia wasnt going to appear on the tv until 1am our time, so I figured I’d just watch the first part.
Was it great? We couldn’t really tell all the time.
Now, I don’t claim to know how the set up of these things work, but I can imagine that the Chinese organisers did not let every single broadcaster send an army of cameras into shoot footage that could be broadcast. So, I assume they had their own little army of camera people in the stadium (who knew where to go so they wouldnt stuff up the amazing displays and knew which bits the viewers might be interested in seeing) and they sent these video feeds to each of the approved broadcasters for their own artistic directors to pick and choose.
So, Mister Artistic Directory (or whatever s/he’s called – the person who chooses which video feed to be broadcast to their viewers at any given time) :
- chose lots of close ups of the performers – hello? it’s a MASSIVE display, designed to be seen from further away so you can see the whole effect, but not so far away that the entire stadium on your tv can be obscured by your hand.
- chose the dumb angle for the “Footstep” fireworks – leading me to think that the Chinese fireworks people had slacked off and couldn’t make perfect circles from their fireworks anymore, but it wasnt until one chance shot closer to the stadium that was from below the fireworks that we could see it was ACTUALLY a footprint.
With the technology we have these days, it would be cool if we could get all of the feeds, and we could be our own artistic directors, choosing the shot we want to see. It would mean we could have seen the entire drumming effect instead of just those 20 guys over and over. We would have been able to see when the dancer left the paper scroll instead of her just disappearing all of a sudden. I could have shown StupendoMan the empty seats in the stadium behind where the flag poles were.
I must say however, the smiley-face fireworks were the best. :D
[update]
I think I must revise my thinking on how these events are broadcast – I just read this fake singer and the broadcast looks exactly the same as what we watched. I’m even more disillusioned now.
Selling a van August 6, 2008
Posted by faelix in moron-ocity.Tags: rant
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So, I’m trying to sell our car – a van. I’ve attracted every kind of non english speaking person I can.
There was the woman who’s still at the shops – she said she’d call back after she finishes shopping.
There was the Indian guy who called up and spokelikethissofastandaccentedIhadnoideawhathewassaying. I managed to deciper two things that he said. I responded to them and he hasn’t called back since.
There was the wussy Indian who took it for a test drive and said that the clutch pedal was hard to press. Time for him to get some leg muscles if you ask me! Pathetic.
There’s the guy who keeps making appointments to see the car but never shows up. Well, he did eventually show up, took it for a test drive, then wanted to offer a little over half of what I was asking. Not a chance buddy. So his next complaint was that it didn’t have power steering.
This was also the guy who called on a Thursday, wanted to see the car that night, but we weren’t available, so I told him he couldn’t see it today, but he could see it on Saturday. ….
me: you can’t see it today, you can see it on saturday.
him: today?
me: no, not today. SAT-urday.
him: today? I see car today?
me: NO! SAT-UR-DAY.
him: today! yes, I see car today.
(i give it some thought)
me: no. day-after-to-mor-row.
him: saturday!
me: yes.
Of course, he didn’t show up on Saturday.
There’s also the viet guy who had a look at the car and then asked if it was auto or manual after having SEEN the gear stick, and when I said it was manual, he said his preference was auto.
And then there’s the people who have no concept of how to talk on a phone. Many of my conversations have been as follows:
Me: Hello?
them: hello?
Me: yes, Hello?
them: hello?
Me: YES! HELL-LO.
them: um. hello?
Me: yes, you said that, what do you want?
… and so it goes.
Ugh. People: learn the language of the country so you can communicate with other people. If you can’t conduct a conversation with someone, how do you expect to get through in life? Sheesh.
[update]
Two people made appointments to see the car tonight. It’s 20 minutes past the first appointment time and no one has shown up. we’ll see if anyone shows up for the second appointment.
This is after a weekend where there were 5 appointments made and no one showed up. Pain in the butt.
The Margarets August 1, 2008
Posted by faelix in ocity.Tags: books
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I’m currently reading The Margarets by Sheri Tepper.
I only read two times a day, for about, maybe, 45 minutes all up – the whole train ride into work, and half the trainride back home. Usually, it’s more than enough for reading, but this time, it’s not! The story has caught my imagination and I want to keep reading! Maybe I’ll get time on the weekend.
As for the book itself, it’s very good. It follows the story of a girl who had imaginary friends when she was younger, but as she has grown up and moved about the galaxy, they’ve disappeared. And somehow it seems that she’s central to the salvation of the entire and ever increasing population of Earth, some 18 billion of them.
[Earth has taken a somewhat doomed course (and it's probably very possible at the rate we're going) - there's no trees, no animals other than humans, there's no clean water. The Earth governments have come to a population reduction program agreement with alien races - sell people to the aliens as slaves in exchange for clean water. I've now read up to a part where they've actually spread a sterilant throughout the population on Earth - so the majority of the population are sterile, but some people are resistant to it and are still fertile.]
It’s a very good story so far and I am hanging out to get back to it!
