Nah, just kidding. What I meant to say is that The Simpsons show had an opening sequence parodying the Game of Thrones opening. I'm a big fan of the Simpsons and Game of Thrones. I absolutely love the Simpsons for their parodies and seeing their version of the Game of Thrones opening just amazed me. They did a great job, making the animation with great similarity and homage to the original sequence, right down to using the original score, the flaming rings transitions, buildings rising from the ground, the spinning gears and machine parts, the aerial view of the map, the growing tree and even some of the names (eg. Burns Landing a parody of Kings Landing). You have to see the videos together to appreciate the amount of effort they've put in. It's stuff that this that keeps me addicted to the show.
I've embedded the Simpsons opening, Game of Thrones opening and just for fun, a rock-violin cover of the highly cinematic Game of Thrones theme. Enjoy.
Opening Sequence of The Simpsons - Season 23 Episode 15 - 4 March 2012
Opening Sequence of Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones Theme Covers by Jason Yang and Roger Lima
A simple meme comic I made regarding the New iPad name.
After many, many rumours of a new iPad for months after the release of iPad2, Apple has released their new iPad and named it, well, "The New iPad".
The internet has been abuzzed with rumoured names like: 1) iPad 3 - a direct sequel to iPad 2. 2) iPad 2S - following the naming sequence of the iPhone 3G-3GS and iPhone 4-4S. 3) iPad HD - following rumours of a Retina Display screen.
Apple officially unveiled their new iPad and just called it that, The New iPad, showing everyone time and time again that Apple rumours are what they are, rumours. This new iPad is essentially the iPad 3rd generation, going by the same naming convention as their iPod, iPod Nano and iPod Touch lines. It'll probably just be released as iPad, further adding to the confusion.
With that out of the way, here's just a quick summary of what the new iPad is all about:
1) 9.7" Retina Display (3.1million pixels, 2048x1536 resolution) 2) 5 MP BSI camera 3) Dual Core A5X processor w/ quad core CPU 4) 3G/4G LTE antenna 5) 652g (heavier than iPad 2) 6) 9.4mm thick (thicker than iPad 2) 7) iOS 5.1 8) 10 hr battery life (claimed by Apple) 9) 16/32 GB storage (non-expandable)
And that's about it. If you're wondering, what's so special or ground breaking about this new tablet, the answer is nothing, or unless you want to count the Retina Display. It has a nice screen, good colours though artificially saturated by the GPU, high resolution display. It is a worthy upgrade from the original iPad but it hardly warrants the upgrade from the iPad 2.
With Apple setting the benchmark (whether good or bad, you decide), the competition will find ways to try to best it. Android tablets are coming out strong, with some tablets already better than the new iPad specification-wise. In terms of performance, Android is not as smooth or may not have the same eye-candy as iOS, but apps on Android are more stable and crash less often according to a recent study. Furthermore, Windows 8 tablets are just about to show themselves later this year and are already looking pretty good themselves, as can be seen in the demo below. Also Windows 8 has the advantage of being able to run in both a tablet mode and a desktop mode on the tablet, thereby allowing more flexibility and possibly heralding the true tablet PC though this still remains to be seen.
In the end, tablets are still a new commodity and their future is still yet unpredictable. It will still be as exciting to see how they will turn out to be a year later as it is now, 2 years after Apple released the first iPad.
Now that the SOPA fever has died down.. Let me remind everyone that there is another more dire bill coming up in the European Union and this is the one to watch. This bill will not only destroy the web, but also the individual, you and me. It is called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The supposed reason behind ACTA is similar to SOPA, to protect intellectual property. It was first drafted in 2008 and has gained many signatures including from Singapore on 1 October 2011.
Now this is what ACTA does: 1) forces Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Singnet and Starhub to scan and track every single data packet to and from every internet user. 2) any counterfeiting of copyrighted materials detected will allow the ISPs to deny internet service to the user 3) furthermore, the ISP is required to inform the publisher of said copyrighted material, who will then decide if the user will be charged in court
You may think you're safe but wait.. ACTA gives permission to all ISPs to monitor every single user. Everyone will be under constant surveillance. There is no more privacy, every single website you visit, facebook posts, tweet, youtube video, etc etc, will be under scrutiny. ACTA grants so much power that even if you were to buy a single MP3 song online and transfer over email or MSN to a friend, BOTH you and your friend will be prosecuted.
Some examples that will get you prosecuted under ACTA: 1) Sharing copyrighted material online, through MSN, Skype, Dropbox, etc. 2) Uploading copyrighted music, videos or homemade videos with copyrighted music on video sites like YouTube, Facebook video, etc 3) Quoting a line out of a copyrighted song, novel, newspaper article, etc.
NO ONE IS SAFE
If you had thought SOPA is bad, ACTA is worse. SOPA only has the power to shut down websites that are suspected of copyright infringements. ACTA attacks websites AS WELL AS goes straight to the individual, removes privacy and freedom of speech by constant surveillance. Like SOPA, ACTA also allows censorship of audio, video and text. Governments that signed ACTA can leverage its power to censor anything it desires such as politics. This results in the individual losing their civil rights. Any offenders can be prosecuted. What this means that in future elections such as the General Elections 2016, government critical tweets, facebook and blog posts can be censored.
This is just a very quick summary of what ACTA is about, there are many more underlying regulations that will be enforced. It also does not help that further discussions on the bill are kept secret. Bills such as SOPA and ACTA are favourable to governments since it can be used as a weapon. SOPA may have been denied after last week but ACTA has gained momentum and quietly.. As of now, countries such as Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and the United States have already signed the bill. The bill will be negotiated after 31 March 2013 by the European Union. If the bill should pass, get ready to be very afraid.
PS: We can't do anything since Singapore has already signed it. We just have to wait till next year to find out the future of our online privacy and civil rights. In the meantime, all we can do is keep each other informed.
Michael Jackson may have passed away in late June 2009, but it seems that the late King of Pop is still producing hits even past his death. The latest single from Akon and Michael Jackson, Hold My Hand, has only just been released on radios and is very popular. Contrary to belief, "Hold My Hand" is actually a 2-and-a-half year old song. It was completed in June 2008, a year before Michael Jackson died.
A quick search online would uncover the "Hold My Hand" story. Michael Jackson was working with many musicians the few years leading to his death. In particular, he was collaborated more with Akon. They recorded "Hold My Hand" in June 2008. Interestingly, the song leaked onto YouTube, with videos of the songs appearing on June 30, 2008. Apparently the YouTube managed to remove all the videos containing the song. I did a quick search and the earliest video I could find was uploaded on Dec 4, 2008. (Video below)
I didn't find out what happened to the song since then and why it is only released recently when it is clearly completed, based on the video below. After Michael Jackson died in 2009, the news reported that some of his uncompleted music would be completed and released. Many people would therefore assume that "Hold My Hand" is one of those songs that was completed after his death. In actual fact, the song was only unreleased. Regardless, MJ fans should still appreciate his music, no matter when it was done.
Starbucks has started selling wine and beer in their flagship store in Seattle, USA. It's an experiment to try to draw a bigger evening crowd. The 40-year-old coffee franchise is one of the largest coffee chains in the world. It is also the first to introduce "premium prices" for a regular cup of coffee and the idea that you can drink large amounts of coffee at any time of the day. Currently, the big green giant reported that most of its customers patronise before 2pm and that it is also losing out to its competitor despite numerous efforts to stay at the top. Therefore, in an effort to draw a bigger evening crowd, Starbucks is going to start selling beer and wine. It is a move that will help people to "relax" after work. Starbucks fans need not worry as the stores will be re-designed to look more like a modern bar, with dim lightings than the current traditional coffee store look. At the moment, only the flagship store in Seattle is trying out this new approach - selling coffee in the morning and alcohol from evening onwards - and if successful, Starbucks will expand this venture to the rest of the world.
As always, there are some drawbacks to such a move. Starbucks has always been associated with coffee and a move into the alcohol business may not be beneficial to its name. Also, there will be age limit rules if they decide to sell here in Singapore. It is not clear how they would enforce the age-limit if they wish to attract every age group. Underaged teens can no longer tell their parents that they'll be hanging out at Starbucks per se. Students should not be allowed to study there, or at least once it reaches "happy hour", though I've yet to decide if this is a pro or con. It is possible, too, that tipsy customers may get rowdy and create a scene in a Starbucks outlet, further ruining the image of Starbucks as a place to chill out.
However, from a consumer's point of view, this means that wine and beer are much more easily accessible, though coming from Starbucks, it is likely the prices will be sky high. In the end, it is a very high risk maneuver for Starbucks but it is worth a try.
The American Public Health Association just recently published the results on a study performed by researchers from the Case Western Reserve University with 4257 local students. What they found was that teenagers that hypertext and hypernetwork are more likely to engage in sexual activities and consume drugs and alcohol, with the majority of them being female minor students.
According to the researchers, hypertexting is sending more that 120 sms-es a day and hypernetworking is spending a total of more than 3hours on any social network sites a day. From their study, they found that 1 in 5 students are hypertexters and 1 in 10 are hypernetworkers. Interestingly enough, they have linked that to the increase in tendency to try out sex, drugs and alcohol, presumably from the higher exposure from "communicating" more. These teens are also more likely to be obese and/or have eating disorders. They also had more stress and suicidal thoughts, sleeping disorders and are less secure. The results also show that younger female students form the majority.
Nevertheless, there was some good news as almost 1 in 4 do not send sms or social network at all and these people are generally in better health. However it is stated in the research that the correlation between hypertexting, hypernetworking and health might not even exist.
It should be noted that these results are from research done on American students, it may not be an accurate benchmark for Singaporeans, but it is a concern nonetheless. From what I see, Singaporeans are more or less following American trends, so it won't be much of a surprise if a similar study in Singapore will yield an equivalent or more dire result.
Personally, I feel that technology is a good thing, it helps you to live life more conveniently and comfortably. But too much of a good thing is a bad thing and one should know the dangers of embracing technology. Technology has blurred the line between good and bad so much so that it's difficult to discern between what's good and what's bad without having to enter some form of conflict. It does not help that corporations are throwing too much choices in our face, making it even more difficult for us to control ourselves, such as unlimited sms and free-roaming data plans to ensure that we are always connected and dependent on the internet. Ultimately, technology is here to stay and will evolve further, the only thing we can do is discipline and educate ourselves.
In a world where computer generated images (CGI) can easily be found on every advertisements and posters, it is easy to assume that if a picture looks too "nice and clean" to be real, it had to be made in 3D. The picture as shown looks like lots of other phones poster out there. The difference is that it is not made in 3D at all, what you are seeing is a real photo and not a computer generated image of a phone.
Almost every product you see in advertisements, ranging from cars to cleaning products to computers and phones and even fast food are made in 3D. While 3D is the standard to produce anything with relative ease, there are some who would still prefer a manual and more practical method.
Serial Cut Studios is one of them. It is a company based in Madrid, Spain. Serial Cut Studios doesn't make use of 3D software to create a "3D" product advertisement, instead relying on a simpler and more hands-on method, literally. They use paper crafts. So a typical Serial Cut advert would be made with paper, lit up in a studio and photographed. Really simple method with an awesome realistic result. So even if you don't use or don't know how to use 3D, a bit of imagination and ingenious thinking will still get the job done.
Applidium, the company which brought the widely popular, play-it-all VLC Player to the iPad has finally made a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new version supports more video formats, which is the base of the popularity of the player and a much faster decoding process. It was a surprise to the fans since it was thought so that this app would not make it through Apple's ultra-strict apps-approval process. The number one issue is that this app is a direct competitor of Apple's native Videos app on the iPhone/iPod Touch.
So when the news broke out that the app is finally approved on 25 Oct 2010, the world rejoiced. Including me. ^.^
The new VLC Player App is able to play most video formats and has a faster decoding process. It is only available for iPhone 3GS, 4 and iPod Touch 3G and 4G. I bought an iPod Touch 3G in July this year. I usually stay clear of Apple products but I decided to splash out extra money to get one for a few reasons, the main reason being the convenience of watching videos on the go, especially on my way to school. Previously, I used to watch videos on my PSP Phat aka PSP 1000. While it was sufficient for me, I didn't like the bulk and weight of it and that I had to convert the files to an MP4 format. It was just so troublesome.
I was enticed by the large screen and thinness of the iPod Touch. Unfortunately, I haven't been thorough in my research on the video playback. After I bought it, I realised that while the audio/music app was nicely streamlined, the videos app was an absolutely pain to use. Video conversion was still needed before transferring the video onto the iPod and the onboard conversion-process in iTunes was useless. Furthermore, the video had to be specifically supported by Apple's Quicktime before it can be converted. So no MPG or MKV or other popular formats. Therefore I had to download converting software and therein lies another problem, most of these softwares do not convert into the proper aspect ratio. Letterboxing for widescreen videos are not automatically added, thus making the videos stretched. Eventually I managed to find one that could mass-convert videos with letterboxing, but the converted videos have errors most of the time.
Additionally, the video app on the iPod Touch has no sorting methods at all. At all. I have like 250 videos in my videos app now and the only way to sort the videos is to rename them individually before transferring as they only appear alphabetically. The video filenames also do appear in full, which is a problem when I have a few videos in a series with the same title except towards the back. For example, The Simpsons S16E03 - xxxxxxx. The app would truncate to The Simpsons S16.... So if I had episodes 1-22 from the Simpsons Season 16, I would see 22 video files with the same name. Truly irritating. There's also no way to sort the newest added video other than look at the green dot to indicate if it's been viewed or not.
To make matters worse, there are no substitute video player apps on the AppStore as Apple does not approve apps which "replicate functions" with other apps, as stated in the app-approval guidelines. In other words, they don't want any app to compete with their own. So in the end, I just gave up on watching videos on the iPod.
All hope seems lost but suddenly, the VLC Player app surfaced on 25 Oct 2010 and I immediately went to download it. I admit I was a bit suspicious that the king of video player has been toned down to get approved. Boy was I wrong and what can I say, it truly is a play-it-all video player, even on iDevices. I need not convert my video files anymore. What a relief! AVIs and MKVs now play smoothly. Transferring videos is as easy as drag-drop-sync. Now that VLC is on my iPod, I can chuck the Apple's video app away into oblivion. Although there is no sorting options too, at least I can see the full names of the videos and the time needed to convert the files are gone. That itself is a huge convenience to me already and I am finally using the iPod Touch for the reason I bought it in the first place. Also within 2 days of its release, the app is among the top 3 most-popular apps in the AppStore. That shows how many people hated the Apple's video app.
Facebook is a great social network. It allows you to share photos and videos. While video sharing is adequate, I find that the photos is the exact opposite. Although Facebook allows you to upload high-resolution photos, it downsizes them to a 720pixel high photo, meaning at a lot lower resolution.
It may not be a bother to many people, but it does bother people like me who want to share and appreciate hi-res photos. This has led people turn to other photo-sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa to satiate their need for ultra high definition photos. Finally, Facebook has listened and now allows people to share high definition photos. Just how high? They've kindly provided images to illustrate their new system. Although the photos will be very large in size, I believe that the display size will still be the same as now, but with the option to zoom in on the photo for its full glory.
Facebook will now support very high-res photos
Also, Facebook improves the viewing interface of photos with a new lightbox style that you will see on many websites, such as STOMP, where clicking an image will lead to a white box expanding over a dark background to display the photo. One benefit of this is that you no longer have to load a new page everytime you want to view a new photo. Instead the lightbox widget pop out and you can view photos and even albums without ever leaving the page. As only the photos and the comments will refresh, you can browse through photos much faster.
Facebook promises a more comfortable photo-viewing with this method. Although I myself always wanted photos against a dark background, I'm a little apprehensive of this lightbox style as I find it a little annoying if it is not implemented properly. The Facebook blog also included a screenshot to give a preview.
The new lightbox style will show a popup photo display.
Also, Facebook has promised to update their uploading and tagging system. When uploading photos, the new uploader will allow you to choose between uploading at standard or high resolution. Also, tagging is improved and it will allow the user to tag multiple images at once, making it even more convenient to share photos over this giant of a social network site.
The new uploader allows you to choose between standard and hi-res.
Finally, Facebook says that it will slowly roll out this new photo display over the coming weeks, so let's just see how things work out. Good things may just come to those who wait. ^.^
Apple iDevices are always touted as being able to do everything, even to the point of saying "there's an app for everything". NewsDay, a newspaper app on the iPad made this interesting advert to show that the iPad can really be used for everything. The only drawback is that the device may not work as intended after that. "Read more" to view the video.
LG is usually not the first name you think of when you talk about mobile phones and televisions. But that doesn't mean that they are not trying to be ahead of the curve. At the ongoing IFA Consumer's Electronics show in Berlin, they have unveiled some new products and technology, including a prototype Windows Phone 7 and the world's thinnest OLED TV.
World's Thinnest OLED TV (2.9mm Thick)
When you talk about thin televisions now, Samsung's LED TV or Sony's Monolith TV are the few that will pop to mind. Technology in TV sets has always been improving, from Cathode Ray Tube (CRT), to Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), to Plasma. More recently, they have evolved to Light Emitting Diode Backlit (LED) to achieve thinner displays with a high contrast ratio, of which Samsung is the forerunner.
Samsung LED Backlit TV, it's already as thin as it can get
However, there was also another technology quietly sitting in the background. It's called Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED). It offers the very good colour reproduction, the best viewing angles and highest contrast ratios among all current technologies. It is also the thinnest and is very flexible, in the literal sense of the word. Check it out in the video below.
While OLED is already in widespread use in electronics nowadays, the main drawback of it is the high price when it comes to bigger screens. Thus it hasn't been heard of in current television sets, though there were some shown by Sony a couple years back at about 5mm thick but those were only about 11" wide and cost a few thousand (wow!).
Sony's 11" OLED Display at 5mm thickness
Now LG Electronics have revealed their newest TV that uses OLED technology. It is only a prototype, unfortunately. Regardless, it is an amazing TV set to behold. It is the world's thinnest at only 2.9mm thick! You can see it in the video below. The viewing angles are just wonderful, images can be seen the moment you can see the screen. And the colours are deep and rich. No price has been put on it or whether it will go into mass production soon, but it's such a beautiful TV.
LG Optimus 7 - A Windows Phone 7
As mentioned above, LG is not one of the first companies that comes to mind when talking about smartphones. They did try, if you remembered, with the LG Cookie and LG Arena. Ultimately, LG can make a good phone but their user interface and OS just simply do not offer a nice experience. Today, almost every new smartphone has at least a 1Ghz processor, good graphics capabilities and multitouch screen. But what sets them apart are the interfaces and operating systems. There are currently iOS, Andriod, Symbian, Meego, Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, WebOS, Bada OS, etc, each with their own design and features.
There is a new, highly anticipated operating system, due to release later this year. That is Windows Phone 7, not to be confused with Windows Mobile OS. It is an entirely new operating system developed by Microsoft and offers a fresh new way to integrate your lifestyle into a phone. The interface is totally unlike what we've seen in iOS or Andriod. Various demo videos have surfaced on YouTube and the OS is currently looking very sleek and professional and smooth running.
Windows Phone 7. It's homescreen features "Live Tiles" which shows you important information on the go.
Many big companies have already signed on with Microsoft to bring this WP7 into the market when it is released. Among them is LG. The Optimus 7 is a prototype Windows Phone 7 that they are showcasing in IFA 2010 right now. Interestingly, Dell is also joining the smartphone industry and came up with some cool looking phones, including a Windows Phone 7 phone. You can read about it in my earlier post here.
LG Optimus 7 Phone
I am not too sure but I think Microsoft do not allow Windows Phone 7 phone makers to skin their devices, unlike Andriod, so there is not way to distinguish one WP7 phone from another. The only way is to provide native apps to their phones to enhance the experience. What LG has done instead is to make their devices work with one another. For example, this LG Optimus 7 allows you to stream photos and videos from the phone to a pair LG TV via DLNA wireless technology. It is not really a new thing but LG has made it more fun by introducing "flicking" gestures. You can view the photos on the phone and if you like what you see and want to share with everyone in the room on a big screen TV, simply flick the photo off the screen to the TV and the TV will display the photo. Pretty neat huh? It can also be done with videos and looks really interesting. Check the two videos below to see it in action.
Technology-wise, LG Electronics has shown that they are not too far behind in the smartphones and television race. They have shown some innovative ideas and will not be overshadowed by the larger companies like Samsung.
In the world of design and multimedia, learning how to harness the power of an image editing software like Photoshop is a must. Photoshop can do just about anything, from drawing to painting and visual effects.
But that didn't stop Stephania Rota from using it to cook food, with a bit of creativity of course.. And a camera. She created this superb video for a competition organised by Adobe. Naturally she got lots of positive feedbacks (otherwise I wouldn't be featuring on my blog!), though I'm not too sure if she won or not.
For those who have experienced the UI of Photoshop before, you'd definitely appreciate the efforts she put in to make the video as accurate as possible to the real thing. Although the work draws inspiration from Photoshop, it seems ironic that Photoshop was not used at all in editing this video.
It's been commonly understood that we all have the 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch and Smell. This has been brought forth by Aristotle back in the BC years. However, scientists have said that the human body is so complex that these 5 senses aren't enough to describe what it can do...
Nowadays, it is accepted that the human body has between 9 - 20 senses, depending on how you want to define what a "sense" is. For the body to have a "sense", it has to have a sensor that is specifically made for that function. For example, there are sensors (rods) in the eyes that can detect light and give us the sense of sight. And these sensors can only detect light and nothing else. However, in the eyes, there are other sensors, like cones, that detect colours and only colours. Therefore, you can see that the Aristotle's five senses are very general.
It has been agreed that the minimum number of senses that the human body has is 9. These are Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell, Thermoception, Nocieption, Equilibrioception and Proprioception. Thermoception is the sense of heat, nocieption is the sense of pain, equilibrioception is the sense of balance and proprioception is the sense of where your limbs are spatially.
What do you get when you mix fireworks and a machine gun together? This group of guys decided to do just that. You'll find the answer out in the video below. They bought 500 roman candles fireworks, each containing 30 fireworks shots, tied them all together and lit them up at the same time. What resulted is a huge barrage of 15 000 multi-colour fireworks. Although the fireworks volley was over in only a couple minutes, I must say that it does make an interesting video. Pretty much sure that it'll be so much more exciting to see it in person. If only Singapore allows fireworks.
If you like optical illusions, you've probably have heard of the zoetrope before. Zoetropes create the illusion of movement through rapid spinning of the images and viewing through slits, designed to give a strobe like effect and the perception of motion... This guy decided to modernise the zoetrope, using UV lights and a camcorder, with a lower frame rate. The result is a whole lot of cool futuristic looking animations with a very simple set up.
Light painting, or drawing with light while leaving the camera shutter open, is gaining popularity due to cheaper DSLR and compact cameras with manual shutter controls. There are many stunning light painting photos available on the net. There are, of course, some people who decided to take it another level and do light painting videos. However, since you can't get the light painting effect without leaving the camera shutter open for at least 1 second per frame so that you can draw an image (something impossible on a video cam), the only way to do a light painting video is painstakingly take many photos and combine them into one video. It's tedious, it's tiring and demands a lot of patience, not surprising then that there are only a handful of such videos..
I chanced upon this video, whose creators decided to illustrate a battle using light painting. I must say, it's really well done. In the behind the scenes, they did mention that they took about 480 photos. And I think they did it all in a night. Really impressive results, with matching sound effects. Take a look in the video below. You may want to check out more videos from this user, he has really good visual effects videos. ^.^
There's this effect in life called the Buyer's Remorse Effect. Basically, it is the feeling of regret after buying something. The effect is usually stronger when the product in question costs more. There are a few reasons for feeling the regret. One is that you realise that the item you bought is not worth the money or at a wrong price, especially knowing that there are better and cheaper alternatives or that there is a newer model coming up. Another is that you have impulsively bought the item. The third is that you know that you have been persuaded into buying the item when you previously had no intentions of getting. The fourth is that you have bought something that is not acceptable to the people around you. And lastly is that you simply bought the wrong product.
There are a few ways that people who regret their purchase tend to do. One way is to simply renounce the purchase and return it for a refund. Another is to accept the product as it is and use it to the fullest. And the last and most destructive is to fool yourself into thinking that the product is indeed the best and start to belittle people around you.
An example would be that you have bought a gadget that is significantly more expensive than other brands. Therefore, you think that because it is more expensive, it should be better. However, after buying it, you realise that there are actually better gadgets with more useful features and at a much lower price. The positive, and harder, approach is to simply admit that "hey, I didn't do my research properly, I made a mistake in buying this. It's my own fault" The negative, and more common, approach is to try to justify your purchase by discounting the arguments and tricking yourself into thinking that the naysayers are ignorant and just jealous of your spending power and your premium product. You start saying that the product you bought is actually the best and anyone who disagrees is wrong. Worse, this attitude may actually cause you to strain relationships with people close to you. Although this is a scary thought, it is actually happening more frequently that we think.
I came across this article about strange candy. Apparently, Fear Factor made this candy shaped and coloured like a cockroach. From what I read, the cockroach wings are crunchy icing and the body is soft gummy. So it will feel like you are really munching on a cockroach, except that it doesn't taste like a real one would. But still, yuck!
I suddenly remembered this. Close to 10 years ago, I was all crazy over the pokemon TV shows. Then one day, there came news that there was an episode shown in Japan, featuring Porygon, that caused 700 children there to experience seizures. This prompted Singapore to ban that episode and I never got to see Porygon!!!
Back then in 2001, there was no YouTube or any widely used video streaming sites to find that episode. And I only had ADSL internet connection, making it difficult to stream high quality videos even if I could find it. Well anyway, with the wonders of YouTube. I managed to find that clip.. =)
Turns out, it is only a short scene in the movie, where Team Rocket launches some missiles at Porygon and Pikachu came out and thundershocked them. For some reason, the artists decided to flash red and blue screens rapidly for that particular thundershock effect. It only lasted about 5 seconds, but it still hurts the eyes.
I've included the clip below should you wish to view the flashing screens. As far as I know, this video is recorded on a lower frame rate, so the flashing effect is actually less intense. The flashes from the original episode was at 12 times per second. So I doubt you'd get a seizure by watching the clip below, though you may feel uncomfortable. But if you really want to, watch in full screen, high quality and bring your eyes closer to the screen. =P
**The flashing scene begins at the 15 seconds mark.**
This graph shows that Apple was in second place until 2010, when it jumped to number 1.
Most people will tell you that Apple computers have the least crashes, viruses and errors than Windows PCs. That conclusion is true, many years back. The counter by PC-lovers was that Apple supposedly had a much smaller user base, therefore less people reported errors and less virus authors targeted Macs. Mac-heads then said that it was a baseless argument. Well it turned out that it could have been true after all.
Welcome to present time, when more and more people adopted the Macs for their advertised system stability, ease of use, no viruses, etc etc etc.. And guess what. New research has been done and now look at who is the leader in all the key areas it was supposed to be strong enough for a Windows user to switch to the Mac. So if you've people coming to you and saying that Macs are the best, this is the article you would want to show them. The arguments that they will use against Windows PCs are now defunct. Just in case you don't want to read the actual article, it also says that Apple is the leader and Microsoft stands in third position. Kind of funny that Windows, with a huge user base (~70%), is actually behind Apple with a much much smaller user base (~20%).
Regardless, I would still agree that Apple products have the good looks, both hardware and software. But functionality-wise, there's really not much advantage over Windows, no matter how much better they look.
