One feature that I am missing from iTunes (in addition to this one, of course) is “music collections”. We have 5 iPods in our household, and I am using 3 of them (16 GB iPod Touch, 8 GB iPhone, and 4 GB iPod Mini). I would like to use different iPods for each kind of music. For example, one iPod for commercially bought pop/rock music, one for freeware indie rock music, and one for electronic/dance. As I am a bit of a control freak, I just don’t like them mixed up because they don’t sound the same. Plus, not all my music+videos fit on my iPod Touch or the iPhone, so I am using all 3 devices.

Each time that I purchase, or rip, or add a new song in my iTunes library, I would like to be able to have the option to drop them into a specific collection of music. I know that there are smart playlists that you can possibly sort via “genre”, but thing is, each ripped CD or download features a different name for a genre. For example, for what I perceive overall as “indie rock”, it might be tagged as alternative, grudge, garage, alt.rock, rock, hard rock etc etc. So I can’t possibly go and change the tags of 5,000+ songs one by one. Instead, I need an easier drag-n-drop solution (while I am building the library) that keeps things separately: music collections. And each iPod would sync to one of these.

I understand that when iTunes first came out this feature didn’t make much sense, but 7 years into the iPod times, some people tend to have a whole collection of them. So I am pretty sure I am not alone in this request.

Stormrider posted a very interesting and as always, right-in-the-mark blog post.

If you want to see what’s wrong with many Greek people today, you simply have to look at one person, who happens to be a good representative of the bunch: Mikis Theodorakis. He is an internationally known composer, and a politician. Even if you might never heard his name, you probably have heard his music somewhere.

And you don’t have to know him to judge him. You just need to read his — pretty objectively written — Wikipedia page (towards the bottom).

Let me vomit now.

I just read this over at Slashdot, and was funny, as I was thinking just yesterday that the future of computing won’t be a free utopia but a fully controlled environment.

There is no doubt in my mind that NSA/CIA/FBI already have “super” credentials (supplied by Microsoft) that can login to any Windows machine in the world. While this might sound like a conspiracy theory to you, it sounds like normal business to me. If I was working for them, that’s the first thing I would push towards. Apple is as vulnerable as Microsoft in my opinion.

Regarding Linux, they can always offer “patches” or whole frameworks that look strong at first sight (e.g. SELinux), even uploaded by a Joe Hacker, only that the guy might be working for them instead. Look at the recent Debian blunder. For many years now, no one knew that the SSH keys were weak. I don’t give enough credit to the OSS community to fix bugs or even ruthlessly test random patches that make it in. It’s so easy to slip in rootkits on OSS that’s not even funny.

And besides, there is always the chicken and the egg problem. Instead of trying to put rootkits on pieces of software, you do it once, in the compiler. Good luck trying to keep clean the compiler itself, because you always need a compiler to compile your compiler (and very old compilers don’t have all the features you need to compile a newer compiler).

In other words, these agencies use computers to do their job, the same way some do to hack them. So if you ever see a global rootkit unveiled, don’t get surprised. I expect nothing less from them. I would do the same thing if I was in their position.

Post 9/11, there is no such thing as “privacy”. Forget it. Or fight for it.

* Edwards has just endorsed Obama. There’s a good chance that 19 of the super-delegates that endorsed Edwards in the past will also add momentum to Obama’s run. I think it’s a 99% certainty at this point that Obama will win the Democratic race by June 3rd, but I believe that it might be beneficial for his final election race to ask Clinton to be his vice-president. Hopefully her ego won’t get in the way and she would accept.

* The Vatican says that it’s OK to believe in aliens. Ok, I am a believer now.

* A fellow female who also fell for Mr Spock at very young age and her life changed from that point on. Read her account here.

* This article says that Fedora is better than Ubuntu and this one says that Ubuntu is better than Fedora. I find it curious though how both articles forgot to mention how both distros are worse than either a OSX or Windows desktop. Having said that, I find Ubuntu very usable as a normal desktop OS for internet usage. The problem starts when you need something more than that…

* How a career can be completely destroyed by drugs. Same for Lindsay Lohan. No one wants to do business with them anymore. Such a waste.

* [Minor spoiler] The writers of “Lost” said recently that there will be a “spectacular kiss” at the finale of the season in two weeks. TVGuide spills a few more beans and says that “it’s the kind of liplock that stops f—ing time and makes the entire world vanish in the moment.” This can only mean one thing, if you take into account my previous blog post about the episodic format of “Lost” for next year: that Desmond and Penny find and kiss each other exactly at the time when the Orchid station “moves” the whole island and the surrounding seas 2.5 years in the future. So in effect, that kiss, lasts 2.5 years! There is no other way to make a “spectacular” kiss on film, it has to be a twist like that.

1.5 years ago I went on record saying that OLPC rewriting the whole UI of the OLPC from scratch was stupid (1, 2). By saying the obvious truth, somehow I became the “bitch” again for all the Linux weenies who happened to read my blog at the time.

Now, the team realizes their mistake and they regret it, as instead of creating education applications, they were spending time and money re-inventing the wheel.

I told you so.

I have this theory about how the episode format will be for Lost’s next season, Season 5 (S5).

I believe that there will be two distinct narrative timelines, one in the island with the remainder of people, and one off island with the Oceanic 6, Ben and possibly Desmond/Penny. There will be very few flashbacks, possibly no more than 4-5 for the whole season.

The off-island story will stop being out of order, but it will pick up from the S4 finale’s flash forward (which will take place after the S3 finale with Jack trying to suicide). From that point on, the story off island will be as narrative and in-order as the story so far in the island has been. So it won’t be a flash-forward anymore, but what viewers will perceive as “current”. The on-island story will continue to also be narrative and current, but with a catch.

Remember that on the latest episode Locke said that they need to “move the island”. I believe that the “movement” won’t be necessarily in space, but definitely in time. As you might know, at least 3 years have passed by the time the Oceanic Six were rescued and Jack tried to suicide. Even when taking the island’s time displacement into account, you can’t hurry up the storyline by 3 years in a single season on-island in order to match the off-island storyline. That won’t fly with the viewers because the on-island story is the default story.

You see, at the end of S5, we will see the two stories/groups merge again, as the off-islanders will have made it back to the island for the final act in S6. This leaves no alternative to the writers but to have two in-order narratives that their timeframes will match at the end of S5. And this can only mean one thing: time travel for the whole island in order to match the off-island timeline.

As for S6, I don’t expect many flashbacks either, except maybe a few Dharma-based ones. Flashforwards won’t be relevant anymore and flashbacks won’t fly either as the story is not about a few survivors as it used to be in S1, but a whole lot more.

Oh boy, oh boy… True story.

Last night I was reading on wikipedia about Madonna’s “Hard Candy” and I noticed that minus one song, all the songs I didn’t like on the album were all co-written by Pharrell. All the rest of the songs, which I did like, were all co-written by Timbaland. I found this interesting, and I thought to myself “ok, now I know who ruined that album”.

An hour later I went to bed, and had this uneasy dream about losing my mom in the crowd and not having my iPhone with me to reach her. Eventually, while walking around I end up in an open arena where Madonna was giving a concert. I didn’t have a ticket, but I found a cousin of mine (Panos) and we sat down to listen from afar (somehow I forgot about my mom, heh). Lo and behold, Pharrell approaches us, friendly and all:

Pharrell: Lots of problems tonight with this concert, I was told. The computer started playing the background music out of order.
Eugenia: Gawd, I hate software.
Pharrell: How do you like “Hard Candy”?
Eugenia: Except “Give it to me”, I dislike all your songs in it. I found them lifeless and they ruined the album.
Pharrell: I see…
Panos: Eugenia reviews stuff all the time…
Pharrell: Oh, I see. So you are a music critic now?
Eugenia: No, I am a technologist. I wrote my opinion on the album on my personal blog, not any official medium.
Pharrell: Then what makes you think that you can criticize my work?
Eugenia: Well, everyone has an opinion about music. Is this a difficult concept?
Pharrell: No, but I am pretty sure you are a third rate journalist. Bye.
Eugenia: Wait…

At that point I wake up, and I felt terrible. I had hurt his feelings and the dream felt so real that for an hour after waking up I felt really bad. I guess my brain accomplished its target by sending me such a dream: “learn to shut up once in a while”.

USA is involved in wars since 2002. Art, especially popular art, is always influenced by current events. So why the heck are there no military TV series on TV? And take that from a person who doesn’t like anything but sci-fi.

Someone could argue that the war is so far away that the average American who has no children serving, doesn’t “feel” that his/her country is in the midst of a war. However, even if the “we are at war feeling” is not that strong, it’s possibly stronger than a ghost or paranormal TV series. I mean, come on. What’s more likely to happen? Hear that someone saw a ghost, or that someone you know just flew over to Iraq or Afghanistan to serve? In US, it’s the latter.

So why are there no TV series about the US military in times of war? An action/drama TV series that could depict, for a change, a bunch of females, following their story from training all the way to ground zero in Iraq and Afghanistan. Real stuff, not made up little incoherent stories as in CBS’ “The Unit” action/drama.

Money ain’t the problem to recreate such an environment. Fear could be though. Are studios afraid how controversial matters are going to be taken wrongly by some people (e.g. the rape of a woman during service, or the over-zealotry of both sides)? If that’s so, it’s stupid to halt such a production for that reason, because the more controversy there is, the more advertising comes for free.

The conspiracy theorist in me could go as far as saying that the US military itself would not like such a TV series (or even extensive war coverage by the media) and so the studios keep mum (even the legendary “M*A*S*H” TV series aired years after the Korean war was over).

Personally, if I was a TV exec, that’s the kind of TV series I would pitch to the networks right now. And if the networks don’t like it because they are chickens, there is always cable TV, where the rules are much more relaxed. I strongly believe that the clever thing to do right now in terms of TV business is to have the guts to create a controversial war action/drama around females.

It’s gonna get you hated by some weirdos around USA’s bible belt, but also is gonna get you rich. It has nothing to do with “exploitation of the war and our children who serve there” (so spare me the preaching). It has to do with business, and art. Art, and topics of interest in general, should never be halted because some people “might feel hurt”. Get over it people! It’s interesting, it’s current, it’s art, and that should be enough to be a done deal.

Update: Mike emailed me about the “Over there” war drama that lasted 13 episodes in 2005 in the cable FX channel. Apparently, it never picked up an audience, but reading about the plot, this is not the kind of drama I envisioned. This had a too traditional format.

We did a few big purchases yesterday. JBQ bought the new Canon XSi 450D DSLR camera and a 135/2L portrait lens for his Canon 5D DSLR camera. He also got an extender for his big telephoto lens. He looked badass with his long telephoto (*cough*), so I snapped a pic of him today while he was trying out his new equipment. My baby worked hard for these.

If you look hard enough you will see the extender behind the telephoto lens.

Remember the five ducklings I saw a few weeks ago with their mother? Apparently their mother has disappeared and only two ducklings are left. At least they are looking healthy:

Geeks.com sent over for a review the Jazz Elite HDV-188 5MP HD video camera and a 2 GB SD card to go with it. This is a cheap digital camera selling at just $140 right now. It certainly sounds like a steal, but how good is it?

In the box we found the camera, a software CD, a Li-ion battery, a Quick Guide, a carrying pouch, a power adapter (100 - 240V 50/60 Hz), a USB cable, earbuds, an A/V cable and an HDMI cable. The camera is pretty small, weighs less than most digicams, and fits well in the hand. Unfortunately, the construction is pretty bad: the battery door is ready to give up and the LCD turning mechanism feels very flimsy. The “macro” slider too.

The HDV-188 has a 5MP sensor, 64 MB flash storage, SDHC support, NTSC/PAL and HDMI-out, and a rotating 3″ TFT screen. It also features digital image stabilization and a voice recording and mp3 playback mode. It has no optical zoom, only 8x digital.

The camera has a flash light and lens similar to the ones we see on some cellphones. There is no protective cap in front of the lens but a glass surface. It has an on/off button on the top but I don’t see anyone using that as the camera turns on/off automatically when you open the LCD. There’s a macro/normal focusing setting for the lens, a tripod hole on the bottom, astonishingly an HDMI port on the front, and a photo shutter button and a video record button on the back. Also on the back side you will find a rocker button that works both as a zoom in/out and a menu selector, along with a few more action buttons and the USB/AV ports.

It doesn’t take long to get used to the interface. There are QVGA, VGA, 720×480 and 1280×720p recording modes. There are also music and picture viewing modes. When you enter the main menu you can modify the exposure, flash light on/off, sharpness, white balance, stabilization on/off, motion detect (the camera will start recording automatically when detects motion) and night mode. The camera mode allows for multi-snap of pictures, self-timer and photo frame. All modes support a normal color mode, or B&W, sepia and negative. The main settings allow for camera sounds on/off (although there is a bug and the camera forgets that setting the next you restart it), format SDHC card, time setup, selection between NTSC/PAL, and support for 11 languages.

The camera records in h.264 AVI at 5 mbps when in 720p mode (1 hour of video in a 2 GB SD card, sample). Unfortunately, instead of using the much more common h.264 setup of MP4 and AAC, it uses AVI and the “MS ADPCM 22050Hz mono 88Kbps” audio codec that Windows Media Player and most of the freeware players didn’t support well (WMP and VLC had no audio even with ffdshow installed). Sony Vegas was the only application that I tried that was able to read both the video and audio correctly though! The video is recorded at 30.00 fps, but if you enable the image stabilizer the frame rate falls to 24.00.

In terms of visual quality in 720p mode, it’s horrendous. There is a lot of pixelation throughout, and if you start panning, there is even tearing in the video. I don’t see the point of including an expensive HDMI input on a camera like this. Now, the interesting thing is that if you record in 720×480p mode instead (2.5 mbps, can hold 2 hours of video in a 2 GB card, sample), the quality is much better than in 720p mode! Which leads me to believe that their 720p mode might be a marketing ploy, that is, being interpolated. Having said that, the audio quality out of the mic is good though. Better than on most digicams.

So the question remains, is this Jazz camera a better deal than an Aiptek or a Kodak HD camera at a similar price? In terms of visual quality, I would for an Aiptek instead. If I wanted both a pretty good digicam and an HD video camera in one, I would go for this Kodak instead (which also offers image stabilization while the Aipteks don’t). I would get this Jazz camera only if HDMI, image stabilization when in 480p mode were important to me. But its 720p mode is nearly useless.

Rating: 5/10