Things that go boom

The system can identify, track and ultimately
destroy a threat the size of a cricket ball traveling at three times the speed of sound.

Okay, I'm a geek for cool military hardware. I'm not so much into blowing things up as knowing that they can be blown up should the need arise. Anyway, the above is a quote from the product spec sheet for the HMS Daring destroyer developed by BAE Systems and being tested by the Royal Navy.

If they want to sell to the U.S. Navy, they'll have to choose a different sporting implement to make their point. Admiral to BAE sales rep: "Wow, a cricket. That's pretty small. Or is it a whole ball of crickets?" Chirp.

Don't use that one.

I'm finally getting my head back together after the 48 Hour Film Project. It was an amazing weekend working with some of the best people I've ever worked with. Sarah said it best when she said, “This is much more fun than real life.” Really, I just want to get started on the next one and forget about this whole working for a living thing. I'm also thinking that working for shorter periods with an intense focus on the project is actually pretty efficient. I think of all those work projects that drag on for months just because people put off making decisions or adding the finishing touches. Maybe they don't need to be done in 48 hours, but less than 48 weeks might be nice.

Tonight is the premiere of all the short films from this weekend, so I'm headed back up to Cleveland with some of the cast and crew. I'm not looking forward to another 8 hours in the car, but I am looking forward to spending more time with these amazing people I shared last weekend with.

The title to this post, btw, is the line of dialogue we were required to write into the film.

Dilbert-style Project Management

"Please don't spend too much time on this estimate. [The client] just wants an idea of how much it would cost."

—Project manager referring to a major design project's labor and printing estimate.

iDay

Alas, it is iDay. Okay, it's the day after iDay, but I haven't set my iPhone down long enough to eat, sleep or blog. The line at the AT&T store was comfortable—cool weather if a little bit damp—and the folks waiting with us were a delight to hang out with for 3.5 hours. Even the store manager came out to check on us once in a while. Tobias and I were numbers seven and eight in line (although not in that order). One guy actually arrived at midnight—which is no big thing for people in NY, but Athens it's hard core.


Thanks to DiGi for the above two pics of us waiting in line. He kindly came by to gawk at us. We were in and out of the store with our sealed orange AT&T bags (love that color) in something like 10 minutes. It actually felt shorter.


Activation at home was pretty simple (although it required a hasty upgrade to 10.4.10 and iTunes 7.3). Unfortunately the actual activation took hours (still waiting to be able to make and receive calls). The good part is that they'll email you when it's ready, so you don't have to sit at you computer and stare (although I did for a while). The other down side is that the phone won't do anything until activation is complete, so I couldn't sit by my 15-inch PowerBook watching movies on the iPhone's 3.5-inch display while I waited.

But this morning I awoke to a beautifully activated iPhone, and it's every bit as wonderful as the hype (sans the phone part which isn't active yet—BTW, that's because I did a number transfer—but who needs to make phone calls anyway). It quickly connected to my Wi-fi network where I proceeded to watch that YouTube video of the skateboarding dog, check my email (again sitting next to my PowerBook) and try out all of the other fun apps and features.

So far, my only big complaint is that the headphone jack is recessed, making it nearly impossible to plug in anything but the Apple-provided headphones (which are great btw). The trouble is that I want to listen to music in my car with the tape-deck adapter, but the plug won't fit. I'm sure someone will make an adapter, but they shouldn't have to adapt a STANDARD headphone jack. This reminds me of my old Compaq laptop (another life ago) that I couldn't plug most pen-drives into because the USB ports were surrounded by the moulded plastic of the laptop. Surely we've come a ways in device design since then.

I think I'm going to use it's built-in camera to take photos of my cat now.

Acoustic Ecstasy

Find a quiet place with good speakers (the car works for me), turn up the volume and listen to The Fox by Nickel Creek. The live version is especially good. It'll only cost you 99 cents on iTunes, although the CD offers better dynamic range, which actually matters here.

The Watchers

Tobias and I just finished up 6 weeks of intensive work on a short film for the "Future Now" contest in the Not Funny category at iStock. Please check it out (and pass it along to your friends ).

Free Pants!

I found this in my mailbox recently along with all my other junk mail. This one stood out for obvious reasons, and I even opened it because I had to know how and why they were giving away free pants. Turns out if you buy two pairs of old-man pants, you get a third absolutely free! Plus, there were all kinds of other products for the too-old-to-care-if-I-look-like-a-doofus crowd.