Now that the HD war is officially over with Toshiba’s press release a few hours ago, the question is: what to do with 1.3 million HD-DVD devices sold so far. One solution is simply to continue using them for your already purchased HD-DVD discs, or to use them as a plain DVD player.

However, the ideal solution for these devices would be to have a special media-based Linux distro on it. There’s over 128 MB of internal storage on every one of these 6 HD-DVD models that Toshiba released, and each one has an Ethernet port too. What makes sense to me, is for Toshiba to fully publicize their hardware specs of all their 6 models, and write a Linux HD-DVD application to playback HD/DVD discs via Linux (and sell the app for like, $20 or so). At the same time, let the Linux community write and port applications and codecs and libraries, and make the HD-DVD devices powerful media streaming and web browsing devices (that can also playback A/V from discs too). From Theora and OGG to WMV and DivX and h.264. The only unknown is the amount of RAM these devices have.

I personally believe that this would be a pretty nice project given the fact that there are 1.3 million devices sold out there, and these babies can playback HD content without sweating. Who needs the AppleTV and its 720/24p and codec limits?

Geeks.com sent me over a few of their gadgets for a review. As I don’t write for other publications as much anymore (I used to contribute to 3-4 sites, and 2 European printed magazines), I will introduce these products on my blog. These are not products that were randomly sent for a review, but I requested them myself, being curious as to how they would perform given that their prices are so accessible.
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I know, I know. This blog is a lot like “Lost”’s fan blog, but what can I do? It’s my favorite piece of art and brain cell massaging entertainment device.

This poll’s results show how genius the writers are, and how non-traditional they are in the way they tell their story. Think about it, Ben is supposed to be the “bad” guy in the series. And yet, unlike all other cowboys and indians-style shows, “Lost” achieves a perfect balance in creating interesting characters that are not single-dimensional while entertains at the same time in an ultimate level (at least it gives me what I want from a series: transport me away from my daily reality to the island). The poll shows viewers who can’t decide if the bad guy is actually bad!

Best. Show. Ever.

Inspired by a “Pasta Pomodoro” dish called “Tortellini alla Panna” (not the same recipe though). We had the following tonight with JBQ and we liked it a lot. A very rich dish.

Ingredients (for 2)
* Cheese tortellini for two
* 3 slices of uncoooked bacon
* 150 gr of chicken breast
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/4 cup milk
* 1/5 cup white wine or champagne
* 2 tbspoons of frozen spinach
* 1 garlic clove
* 2 tbspoons olive oil
* Some basil (or sage or parsley)
* Black pepper to taste

Execution
1. Cut chicken into strips. Cook pasta as per package instructions and boil the chicken strips with it too. Drain, separate the chicken from the pasta, and set both aside.
2. Cut the bacon in small bits. In a pan heat the olive oil and start frying the bacon. Stir occasionally.
3. Two minutes later add the chicken into the saucepan and fry it together with the bacon for a few more minutes. Stir occasionally.
4. Cut the spinach, garlic and basil in small bits. Add to the frying pan and fry all for another 2-3 minutes until the bacon is crispy and the chicken has taken some color.
5. Add the wine, and cook for one more minute. Add some black pepper. Add the milk and the sour cream. Stir for a while to melt all ingredients together and turn off the heat when the sauce is still creamy.
6. Mix the pasta in it, stir everything for 30 more seconds and immediately serve. Enjoy!

Vegetation shots around the quiet ‘Palace of Fine Arts’ in San Francisco. My JBQ poses in the opening shot of the video. I experimented a bit with HV20’s DOF. HD version here.

Details from one of the finest bridges on Earth, the Golden Gate Bridge. HD version here.

We went to eat at “Pasta Pomodoro” with JBQ last night and as usual, we started talking geek. I started telling him about a pet peeve of mine: “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could save in a lossless codec my final cut video but to also save a ‘reference’ file to tell the video editor where the ’splits’ are so I can re-edit that in the future? Sure, I wouldn’t be able to have layers, transitions and plugin information, but at least I would have the cut information, which is most important. Right now, I am forced to keep 12 GBs per tape footage on the hard drive, while I am only using 1/10th of that usually.”

And he replied: “That’s not the correct way of doing things. The right way would be to save only the portions of the .m2t or DV .avi files you are actually using. These formats can be chopped off and saved without a re-encoding, so this way you don’t lose quality at all. And you get to keep all your plugin, transition and other project information in the project file! It should also keep 10 seconds of extra footage left and right of your cuts!“.

At that point I thought: “Hell, that’s why JBQ is a software engineer, and I was just a petty programmer” (there’s a difference).

So, when we came back home I opened Vegas and tried to find such a feature. I was ready to fire up a feature request if there was no such feature. And yet, there is. Both on Vegas Pro and on Vegas Platinum (not sure about the plain version). Vegas 8 Pro is able to cut/save .m2t and DV AVI without re-encoding, while Platinum 8 can do only DV AVI (although it’s safe to assume that the next version should be able to do .m2t too). All you have to do is to “save as” your project, and check that “Copy and trim media with project“. The next screen will even ask you how many extra seconds left and right of your trims you want Vegas to save.

Very cool feature!

“Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted”, says BBC.

And I say: bullshit.

I’ve worked on an AI project straight out of college. It was my first real job with computers. And I am not talking about “expert learning systems” or other such boring academic stuff, but a project about real AI. The goal was to create an intelligent “being”. I quickly mentioned the project in my Feb 2001 editorial at the now defunct BeNews.

I can tell you one thing: we are far, far away from real AI. Even OpenCYC at this point is simply a collection of data without any real intelligence behind it. In fact, when it comes to AI, people somehow think that it will be ready in “20-30 years time”. They were kept saying that in 1970 too. And each year, it would slip one more year. Just like in some movies and TV series where they depict some really high technology and space exploration that supposedly takes places only 70 years in the future (e.g. “Space: Above & Beyond”).

Personally, I don’t think that human-equivalent intelligence will be ready before 2100. And I am probably optimistic already.

Consumers are stupid. They go where the wind blows. I was just reading that the LCDs have taken over the TV market so much that there is the possibility of plasma companies (like Pioneer that only does plasmas) to exit the TV market or to move to higher-end. People buy the much inferior technology of LCDs not only because of the lower prices, but also because they have no clue which technology is better. The article and even the comments agree. Consumers just don’t get it.

We are very close in buying that Pioneer Kuro 50″ plasma with JBQ so we were looking around plasmas and LCDs at Frys last week. All LCDs had considerable less black levels and were over-sharpened on their default modes (even if you tinker sharpening, it’s how they are). The plasma image was natural, natural, natural. But I guess people fall for the over-sharpened saturated look, thinking that the more “into your eyes” an image is, the better the TV is. Most LCD TVs don’t even de-interlace the right way. You gotta pay a premium for that, and honestly, it’s worth the money.

I KNOW that I will be blasted for writing this blog post, but unless you are very poor and can’t afford a plasma (or you simply don’t use the TV much), you have no excuse for buying an LCD TV instead.

Good “Lost” episode tonight. But attention to detail was really lacking. Here’s why:

It appears that because the helicopter group were about 1 hour away from the beach camp (according to what Juliet said), it means that they were actually pretty close to the camp. The island is pretty big. It takes OVER A DAY to walk to the Other’s village (that’s pretty clear from previous episodes). And yet, we see Sayid and his group entering the Othersville just a few hours after they left, and they even came back before the end of the same day. This is not possible according to what we know about the island locations. This was poor writing.

The reason I love “Lost” it’s because it has a realistic quality to it. But when there are “logical” bloopers like that (rather than normal visual bloopers), it really pisses me off.

The producers said that now the strike ended they will shoot 5 more episodes for this season instead of the original 8 they wanted to, and that they will “accelerate” the plot to fit in 5 episodes. Well, if that’s the kind of “acceleration” we are going to see, then I don’t want it. Plus the ABC decision to move “Lost” back to 10 PM at the end of April, that soured the milk even more.

Update: Amazing, scientific-based theory about “Lost”.