February 2nd, 2012
For your oppo file: When I finally cave to Twitter, this will come in handy.
6 commentsCalling All Smarks
February 2nd, 2012
Did anyone else know about the (seemingly legit) beef between Undertaker and Brock Lesnar?
This video is pretty interesting. Couldn’t possibly be a worked shoot. Right?
2 commentsMy Gift to You
February 2nd, 2012
2 comments
Air Force to Warthog: Drop Dead
January 31st, 2012
If we get rid of our A-10’s, what will our defense be against Cobra’s elite squadrons of Rattlers?
Bonus: G.I. Joe #34 was, obviously, the third-best issue of the series, ever. It cheapens the thrill not at all that, in hindsight, the idea of a dogfight between a modded-out A-10 and an F-14 is insane.
Extra credit if you remember two best issues.
12 commentsAustralian Open 2012 Notes
January 30th, 2012
The Czabe opened his show last week asking why tennis is such a terrible fit for sports-talk radio. He had a bunch of possible answers: niche sport, no enough relevant statistical information for discussions, etc. I wasn’t fully satisfied by any of them, but I agree 100% with his general thesis: Tennis is death on the radio. Even when there’s something relevant to talk about and both the host and the audience know what they’re talking about. It just doesn’t work.
But the flip side of that oddity is that tennis is a fantastic literary subject and it makes for really, really great long-form writing. Like this wonderful Brian Phillips essay on the Nadal-Djokovich final.
1 commentTrailer City
January 30th, 2012
Via the Transom, a trailer for Lockout which (1) Bundles so many cliches that I first thought it was a parody (“He’s a loose cannon.); and (2) Finally makes Guy Pearce into the action star he should be.
2 comments
Kim Dotcom
January 27th, 2012
Wired has the definitive story. Awesome.
1 commentThe Problem with TV
January 27th, 2012
By which I mean actual television sets, not TV programming.
It used to be that you could buy a TV set confident that, over time, obsolescence would only eat your purchase in terms of size and price. A 36″ HD set which sold for $1,100 would be displaced by a 42″ set at the same price point, while the 36″ unit would drop in price. There were mild technical innovations–deeper black levels, for instance–but the essential substance of the units stayed about the same.
Not no more.
I’m in the preliminary phases of scouting out a new television and the market is absolutely terrifying right now. There is a serious tech/aesthetic war over refresh rates. (Have you what a 120 ghz LED set does to 1080p programming? It makes everything look like it was shot with a super-high-def steady cam.) 3D may, or may not, be happening. There is no internet TV standard, so if you want web content on your big screen, you need a bunch of peripherals to get everything. There may be a new screen ratio standard displacing 16:9. And, to add to the uncertainty, Apple may (or may not) jump into the TV space in the next 18 months. Which could be either a flop, so disruptive that it re-orders the entire market.
In short, we’re at a moment where you’d have to be crazy to drop $1,500 on a new primary screen for yourself. Because you could wind up with a device that, in just 2 years, is totally obsolete.
Now, if this happens to be just a peculiar moment that’s the product of a weird confluence of events, then so be it. But I’m a little worried that this could be the general direction of the TV market in the future: That instead of being a household device which is a piece of stable capital–like a washing machine or a hot-water heater–it’s becoming a gadget. And the rule of gadgets is The are designed with very finite life-cycles so that consumers must purchase them in serial.
I really hope we’re not going to a place where we’re expected to replace our TVs every 24 to 36 months.
8 comments
