Category: media

greyfication

history linux malware marketing media


So far botnets have predominantly infected Windows-based computers, although there have been scattered reports of botnet-related attacks on computers running the Linux and Macintosh operating systems.

That’s the NY Times being clueless about Botnets. Good that they write about it. As it is a problem.
Bad that they write so badly about it. The author seems to like ot cover his bases here. “Scattered reports”? God, there are scattered reports about Ant’s playing doom in mongolia. This is as covering. Not more. The reality is that 100% of all botnets are run on Windows machines. There are still no Viruses for OS X. There are MS Office infections that affect the OS X flavor of the product. But the Operating system has been save.

It’s as binary as that. Don’t get me wrong: Apple sucks in some areas. But their OS has had no real life virus infections. People seem to shy away from such binary truths. Easier to throw in a ‘scattered reports’ here and there. Pseudo Balance. It’s actually much more harmful than it seems: It leaves loopholes. It kills the truth: Somebody with an intention could quote now the New York Times that there have been Botnets on Linux and OS X. Which is a lie. Not true. The big question that needs a real answer is, if Vista can join the club of predomiantly safe operating systems or not. Unfortunately journalists will not help in finding this out.

The only real weapon against malware is the truth.
Too bad that the New York Times is too afraid to avoid it.

modern

history media

It probably is a sign of age that these days I can look at a site like arkinetia and like all I see, while pretty women are kind of a yawn lately.
Looking at these houses it seems that Modernism was not just a ‘phase’. It seems to come back, and it makes allot of sense. The iPod could have been done by Dieter Rahms. Kinda. The ideas behind modern design and architecture are still valid. For a while ‘mordern’ was also ‘hip’. People accepted it’s easthetics and repeting it’s symbols, whithout needing to get behind the underlying ideas. Of course this kind of ‘hollow reign’ never lasts.

When modernism comes back now, then I hope that it does for the reason that more people are ready for the underlying view of human life. Not because rectangular is the new black. Time will tell.

media misc technology

Nielsen about movies and interaction design

ps3 and Wii at Ebay.

media Sony

When the PS3 came out there was allot of media frenzy about the huge ebay prices.

Three days before christmas neither Wii nor PS3 are possible ot find in stores. But @ eBay you can buy them. Just watched a PS3/20GB go for 530 US$ and a Wii for 450US$. The problem for Sony is that the actual retail prices compare differently: 80% markup for the Wii and 6% for the Ps3. Looks like people don’t want the PS3 that bad. Which is really bad: At a whopping 500/600 pricetag and with a considerable install base of the Xbox 360 Sony needs to build some momentum. Sofar they fail to accomplish that. It might become a negative chicken/egg thing: with a not so promising install base game developer might avoid to take the risk of a PS3 development that would use the power of the Cell chip. Innovative ideas might be aimed and tested at the PS2. A known development environment and huge install base. Maybe somebody will make a wii like add on to create similar controllers for it. PS3 has not much going for it, except it’s looks and the fact that it’s the most affordable Bluray player.

a corporate flash site that does not suck

confessions of a pixel pusher internet marketing media

ILM’s Pirates 2 show and tell

Usually VFX companies have a hard time telling the world about their work. Either they keep their ‘secrets close to their chest’ or they simply lack the skills to communicate well. Lately a certain diss-interest of the public can be added to the list: The fact that something is not real in a movie is not worth mentioning anymore. The bar is much, much higher now. And -of course- ILM in Pirates2 reached it big time with Davy Jones. Their site about the fx is surprisingly good, informative and fun.

While looking at the blogs that link to the ILM page I found this 80’s TV piece

at Visual FX blog.
I had no idea that Lasseter / Disney did try to make “Where the wild things are”.

who? me?

media

linkbait

so true, just had not heard the term before. ‘linkbait’.

flash video sucks

confessions of a pixel pusher internet media

yeah, yeah,

youtube. Everybody talked about all that money g paid for it.
Next one on the list of things to mention is the ample amount of content.
And then -of course- people mumble about DRM. Lawsuits. All that stuff journalists like to write about.

But, did anybody ever look at it???

It looks like shit – curtesy Flash video. 95% install base made this format an instant winner.
And it still looks like shit. When MTV appeared it at least had the same TV quality than the rest.
The sad part is, that it seems to be good enough. People don’t seem to mind.

two divided by two plus one plus allot still makes zero

confessions of a pixel pusher media

Once about a time Amanda and Andrew (2) made rocketboom. And it was alright. Had a couple of ideas, was fresh, delivered in iTunes daily. Overall it was worth watching. Then they broke up (divided by two). Andrew got a new leading lady (+1). I never started watching again (=0). She tried to much to be like the old rocketboom AND try to find her own style in the same time. Amanda went to LA. She signed with a talent agency. And now ABC picked her up (+allot):
ABC’s “page” for Amanda Congdon

Just watched the first installment. It it dull, boring. No content. Nothing of interest. More visual treatment but nothing that mattered or that was original. She still does the signature swing into the camera thing. But not even those worked. Timing is indeed crucial.
Perceived production value on the original rocketboom was definitely higher than it is now. Which is ridicolous, since ABC probably spends between five hundred and thousand times more per second than the original did.

Another sad part of the new presentation is the whole “breast in your face” action. No, it is not me. I have watched her for hours, daily on Rocketboom. Yes, she never was ugly. But it was a good mix, with her looks not trying to center stage. Which is almost always horrible boring. It seems ABC never understood her or the whole concept. They tried, and failed dismally. It could easily be that ABC will loose around hundret US$ per viewer per episode on the web. Nobody would care to watch this.

I hope that ‘zefrank’ is really only one guy. So he can not split up, and leave us with no decent content left in the those video feeds.

sony: you are toast

media Sony technology

Just saw an unoppened PS3 go for 560 US$. It was the 20GB model that retails for 499 US$. Sixty one dollars for having spend the night in front of a video game store? Not so good in my book. The prices @ ebay for PS3 have been coming down over the last weeks. Which is not a good sign for Sony. If hardcore games would want this machine badly, the prices would be higher. Now if the geeks don’t want it that bad, how about the general public? The plan was that the PS3 would push bluray ahead of HD-DVD. Now it looks as if Bluray has to save the face of the PS3. It’s a cheap player compared to other next gen DVD options. But compared to standard def players it still is expensive: 230 US dollars get you a decent player that will make all you existing movies look really good.

Speaking of: I started buying DVDs. Opportunistically: There are so many movies I have not seen, might want to see again. If the DVD is cheap enough then I just pick it up. After a few weeks of this strategy I ended up with lots of DVDs sitting in my room. IF there is time to watch something there is something to look at. And I like it, that I know I can easily go back to what I have seen. The quality could be better here or there. But it is not worth the money to go back and spend all that money: I get a ps3 from ebay, then a screen that is worth using and I have spent 1500 US$. Then I buy all the movies there are and have 30 mediocre to ok movies for 2,000 US$. When I buy DVDs cheaply and watch them on my laptop I could have 250 movies to watch for the same amount of money. HD is not NOT worth ten times the money. Not even twice. With the Oppo player you actually get an amazing picture out of a standard DVD. Out of most of them. It’s impossible to beat. People will realize this, sooner or later.

Panavision as seen by the LA Times

confessions of a pixel pusher media technology

Panavision in an Article of the LA Times

According the LA Times Panavision does well. They are planning to make twenty more Genesis this years. Sounds like allot, but their own subsidary “Plus-8” has added that many of the competing Viper cameras to their rental inventory last September.