If you think that editing studios worldwide are crying foul over Final Cut X you are mistaken. The editing industry is not software-dependent and Apple knows this. The editing industry moves quite lethargically when it comes to software because of this. Post-production is very expensive which is why your movie crews are so huge. Lighting and visual tricks employed by a good cinematographer reduce the amount of work required in post production by the editor. This is quite common practice in all the motion arts and in reality, you can still create an amazing advertisement, movie, TV show, or whatever with outdated software. Most movie studios moved over to Avid DS long before Final Cut X was announced simply because Avid DS was designed for the HD era, which is now a standard.

In the last 30 years, there has only been one major shift in movie standards, that being the transition from film to digital. Think about that for a second. Final Cut 7 was able to handle any kind of video elements made in the last 30 years. So if the original shooting medium doesn’t change that often, there’s only so much you can do with new software releases. A studio that bought software in 1998 probably is just updating its software now, because there is simply no reason to update video software every year or two. The Jerry Springer show makes a ton of money. Do they have some high-tech editing studio for their production? No, they actually still do their editing with tape. That’s right, tape. If the tools you have get the job done, you don’t need to update them. It’s a waste of money and resources to do so, and Hollywood is all about saving money.

Knowing this, Apple decided to change the focus of its Final Cut product with Final Cut X. It could either create a linear successor to Final Cut 7 that will be purchased once and then kept for 10-15 years, or it could shift the focus of X to be aimed towards consumers and prosumers which have a higher rate of upgrading. Think about Apple’s OS updates. Each new version offers some slightly incremental bonus to the previous software. Is it really worth upgrading from Snow Leopard to Lion? For most people there is really no need to upgrade just for a few bonus features, but the consumer mentality surrounding Apple products is what drives people to upgrade. This is why Apple gets away with charging lower prices for top-notch software, because people will pay for it and pay for it often.

Hollywood does not have this “cult of Mac” fever like consumers have. The biggest hint that Apple is switching focus away from the professionals and over to the consumer/prosumer is the price: $299. Apple would be losing ridiculous amounts of money by just selling their product to Hollywood for such a low price, knowing that they wouldn’t get any more revenues from it for at least a decade. This is also why professional software like Avid DS costs upwards of $10,000. Avid needs to offset almost a decade’s worth of dormant sales with each copy of Avid DS it sells.

Final Cut X is geared towards a whole different market, a market that will generate a steady stream of revenue for Apple. The revenue Apple will get from Final Cut X and its later upgrades over time will far surpass the lethargic adoption rate of the professional video industry. Apple is adding some features that were initially missing in the release of Final Cut X but it isn’t scrambling to plug any revenue holes, especially in a market that it was late to considering how most major players have already moved to other software alternatives.

The GTA V trailer that went live yesterday definitely raised eyebrows as people painstakingly extrapolated information frame by frame to get an idea of what features and details we could expect from the game. Although we weren’t given the identity of the protagonist, nor were we explicitly told who the protagonist in the trailer was, there was some wild speculation about the trailer’s voice-over being done by Ray Liotta, the guy who also voiced Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Liotta’s reps officially denied the rumor stating that Ray wasn’t involved at all with the production of the GTA V trailer, but some people think that just means that Vercetti still might be the main character, except voiced by someone else.

For some reason the hints that the protagonist is middle-aged, graying, and is voiced by someone who vaguely sounds like Ray Liotta are making people think that Vercetti is coming back. Except Vercetti will be 60 years old if he does, taking into consideration that this game will be set somewhere between 2010 and 2010. Rockstar Games would be really pushing the lines of believability if they want to sell us on the notion that a 60 year old retiree can outrun cops, lug around rocket launchers, beat up people of all ages and sizes, and do other feats that need strong physical and mental conditioning.

Furthermore, Rockstar decided that the third GTA era (III through San Andreas) was over with GTA IV and didn’t include any cameos or direct references to characters from the previous games. With the exceptions of some Easter eggs and the re-appearance of media personalities and commercial brands, GTA IV was devoid of any former characters. Bringing Vercetti back would not only break that change, but it would force Rockstar to bring back many of the third era characters in some way, either by cameo or by reference. Considering the rich pool of new characters in GTA IV, which Rockstar will definitely tap into for cameos and references, bringing third era characters into the mix would just over-complicate and dilute the game.

Of course, Rockstar isn’t one to turn down a challenge, so they very well may bring back Vercetti in the starring role and bring back some old beloved characters as well. The chance that this will happen is quite slim. The probability of there being multiple main characters or playable characters, however, is quite high.

1. Lose weight
2. Learn French
3. Compose a song
4. Write a screenplay

Realistically, I will most likely:

1. Gain weight
2. Have a blood alcohol content average of 0.12
3. Get a killer tan
4. Fall in love with someone unattainable

Yay summer!

It seems like everyone was living in the dark but me. For some reason my power was still on and life was good. With ComEd bringing in electrical crews from other states ans pulling 16 hour shifts to repair all of the damage, people still didn’t have power 24 hours later. On Wednesday word got out that I had power so my neighbors came over asking me to store perishables in my freezer and pull extension cords to their homes. Of course, I had no problem with any of this.

On Thursday people still didn’t have power. I was working and doing my thing when suddenly I heard a crash and an electrical explosion outside. I looked outside and saw two electrical poles pulled almost to the ground and a garbage truck in between with electrical cables on it. It turns out some idiot hit one of the poles with their car just as the garbage truck was passing under wires. The wires got snagged by the truck and the speed pulled down both of the poles.

Yup, you guessed it, no more power for me. Fate has a fucked up sense of humor. If that wasn’t ironic enough, today the people who didn’t have electricity now have electricity, and I’m still in the dark. Delightful.

After almost 3 and a half years, I finally finished what I inadvertently began so long ago. I never intended on watching every single episode of every single Star Trek series, let alone in semi-reverse chronological order. It all started with my curiosity for Star Trek: Enterprise, a show I had only watched a couple episodes of but never got into it. I figured that I would give it another chance. Upon completing the entire series I thought to myself, well, why not watch Star Trek: Voyager, as I had missed a fair amount of episodes in that series. And after completing that, I thought the same for Deep Space 9. By then watching The Next Generation was inevitable. Here I am now having just completed Star Trek: The Original Series with no more Star Trek episodes left unseen. I’m not counting The Animated Series for the same reason I don’t count The Clone Wars as part of Star Wars.

Almost 700 episodes (give or take a few). About 31,500 minutes. 525 hours. 21.875 days. Can you believe that? I spent over three full weeks of my last 3.5 years watching Star Trek. I’m not sure if I’m more proud than I am ashamed. foreveralone.jpg. I’ve boldly gone where few people have gone before.

The Original Series was uncharted territory for me, as I grew up with The Next Generation. I also grew up with the movies featuring The Original Series cast, so I was fairly well versed in the rapport between crew-members, McCoyisms, tensions, etc. The movies did a great job capturing the essence of The Original Series so I knew what to expect in watching the shows. However, I was truly surprised at how raw this series was. Whereas future Trek series were more polished and refined, TOS was very much like guess-and-check. It felt very weird to have Spock refer to himself as a “Vulcanian” for most of the first season. Trek lore was literally being written during the filming of this series so everything was unknown.

I think Gene Rodenberry’s vision if capturing the unknown and spearheaded relevant current events and issues had a pivotal start with TOS. However, the show did struggle after the first season, especially in the third. Whether it was hippies taking over the Enterprise or Spock’s brain being stolen, it just got worse and worse. I could tell that the show was trying desperately to change course in the third season when Kirk actually didn’t get the girl every episode. A romantic subplot was given to every male character on the crew roster, effectively bringing Kirk’s galactic gangbang to a halt.

I can’t say I admired the writing after the first season. The clip above from City on the Edge of Forever is probably the best scene from The Original Series, and it doesn’t even deal with space. The Original Series was an experiment, a wonderful experiment. It left behind a legacy and an awe that launched a following that reached every edge of the world. It wasn’t until Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that the cast and crew of this series became firmly immortalized and became fully three-dimensional, setting the groundwork for every single Star Trek series and spinoff that came after.

I was extremely disappointed today when I saw the first peek Microsoft gave the world at Windows 8. Now let me say off the bat that I find nothing wrong with Windows Phone 7′s tile-based UI. I think it is a wonderful evolution to the smartphone/tablet UI and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple or Google borrow such elements for their future versions of iOS or Android. In fact, for mobile devices the tile-based UI is a perfect fit. However, from what I saw in the video above, I am not entirely convinced that Microsoft is properly implementing it into Windows 8. When I first started watching the video I was under the impression that the tile-based UI was the UI of Windows 8. The problems began to pop up in my mind almost immediately. What does this mean for people who run multiple programs at once? Doesn’t this UI make the experience slower when it comes to power-users? I am used to saving files temporarily to my desktop for easy access, so what now?

It turns out Microsoft addresses those questions by showing you how you can multi-task using your finger to stretch the width of a running program app (yes, everything was called an app, not a program) and easily go switch to other apps in the sidebar. This includes actual apps as well as actual programs, like Microsoft Word. What Microsoft purposely doesn’t mention in their showcase is that underneath that lovely UI is a full running version of Windows 7 that can be accessed for apps that aren’t native to the UI. You can clearly see this in the video but Microsoft doesn’t really elaborate on it so the magic of the presentation isn’t tainted. So a tile-based UI running over a regular version of Windows? This is nothing new.

In fact, if you have Windows 7 or Vista (maybe XP, not sure) you can use Omnimo, a Rainmeter-powered skin that will do exactly what Windows 8 has showcased. It seems like Microsoft is pretty much doing what Omnimo does, except developing it in-house so it integrates seamlessly into Windows. Of course, what we have seen of Windows 8 is not going to the the final product. We won’t know for sure if Windows 8 is really just Windows 7 with a skin on top until the final release. Based on what we’ve seen though, this is exactly what it looks like, and unfortunately it isn’t the right path for Team Microsoft in the OS wars. At their simplest level, Windows, Apple’s OS X, and even Ubuntu are just GUIs for a text-based kernel. Microsoft is just adding a GUI to the GUI of Windows, not revamping their operating system as they claim. Is the tile-based UI of Windows 8 a significant change in the evolution of Windows? Sure it is, but it is nothing more than a sidehack that tries to streamline the Windows experience on all Microsoft powered devices.

For many people the new UI will be a cool new toy to play with. It will make things convenient and simple to use. However, the fairy tale will only last for so long. People will be dishing out $99 for essentially a skin for their already existing operating system. Sure, the full version of Windows running underneath Windows 8 will offer improvements upon Windows 7, but it won’t be long until the tile UI will become an annoyance for many. There’s a fundamental difference between a desktop operating system and a mobile operating system. We go back to our desktops or laptops because our mobile devices are lacking in many aspects, not only in functionality and power, but in the user experience. For now I will remain highly skeptical of Windows 8. I can only hope that as time progresses we will see future versions of Windows 8 be something more than just a skin with Windows 7 underneath.

So I begin to think big by thinking small. I am finding myself in that position again. I’m taking baby steps towards making a fist and cocking the arm back, knowing fully well that it will all lead to that giant leap of a punch. Unfortunately this means reevaluating my position. What do I have? What do I need? What do I have that is not helping me get what I need? This means not succumbing to my natural pride and compassion that are challenged far too often in these situations. Just thinking about it is causing an uneasy knot to develop.

So what does this leave me with? Decisions that cannot be answered with questions. Rational uncertainty. Heart vs mind vs society. I know that I will be OK regardless the approach. I always end up OK. I can take it, and when I can’t, I take it until I find an opportunity to privately purge.

So what of my big ideas? They are being processed and refined in my brain. Some might not see the light of day. One already has and I’m working on evolving it. But what they all have in common is this: thy require a lot of money to work, but I never once have thought about how much money I will make from them. I’ve always been one for providing content because content is made for providing, not because it’s made to make money.

By now you are thoroughly confused at what this post is talking about. Don’t worry, I am just as confused as you. But if you want to blame anyone, blame ABC News for their story on how people in my generation are not failing, they are just blossoming later. I’m blossoming all right, blossoming my blog at the late hour of 2:15am.

Ahhh LimeWire. I really didn’t use LimeWire that much to download music. It was nice and clean but the search feature and the amount of content available were lackluster. Now Kazaa on the other hand, now that was a P2P service I loved. I think I went through a bunch of different Kazaa versions over the years, from vanilla Kazaa, K++, Diet Kazaa, and K-Lite. I loved Kazaa, even more than I loved Morpheus. The selection was huge, the search was thorough, and my college connection was locked in at ludicrous speed. I think Kazaa is what made me a savvy searcher. There was that period where trolls would upload MP3s that were titled and sized like the thing you were looking for. Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady” was available and the file size seemed legit for a song that was about a four minutes long. And upon downloading it you would open it up and discover that it was the chorus looped over and over again for 4 minutes straight. Soon I began to look into file sizes and names and start comparing them with others. Within a month I was able to hone my instincts to a 99% accuracy, not only on fake files on Kazaa, but on websites, pictures, and more.

Of course before Kazaa there was Morpheus, which was the same thing. I never really knew what the difference was between the two. All I know is that around 2001 or 2002 I switched from Morpheus to Kazaa. And before Morpheus there was Napster. Napster was the holy grail of the internet during 8th grade and my freshman year in high school. I would select a dozen MP3s from “green” hosts and leave my 56k connection on overnight. I’d wake up in the morning and burn a CD just in time to go to school with my new music! But what about before Napster? Not many people remember what digital music piracy was like in the pre-Napster days. Of course copying a CD to a CD-R or recording it onto a cassette tape were popular methods, but they didn’t really deal with the spreading of MP3s. It was in the pre-Napster days of 1998 and 1999 that I participated in online music piracy, not as a downloader, but as a distributor.

In 1997 was when I first was introduced to the internet with my 28.8kbps modem, but in 1998 was when I upgraded to a 56k. Owning people in Star Wars: Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight was so much easier with 56k! Well it was during this time that I was introduced to Greek music. It was also the time where I became annoyed that the only times I would get new Greek CDs were on holidays or special occasions. Nobody wanted to drive all the way downtown to the one store that imported Greek music, spend $20 or $30 and drive all the way back home with me. A snotty little 7th grader was just not worth it. So the little philanthropist in me decided that I was most likely not alone in my plight. There had to be others living in the U.S. that didn’t have easy access to Greek music. So one day I was surfing Yahoo! looking for articles to help me out with a project (yes, there was no Google or Wikipedia back then) when I stumbled upon a site called Homestead.

Homestead offered free website hosting and the ability to build a website without needing to know any code or technicalities. Its SiteBuilder tool was a simple drag-and-drop device that would allow you to move your items around on your page freely, like you would on a Windows desktop. My only experience with HTML back then was when I accidentally hit View Source on a website and I was greeted by a Notepad document full of these strange symbols. I immediately thought Homestead was the coolest thing ever. I’d be able to create a free website and put screenshots of my online gaming experiences on it without having to deal with that strange HTML hieroglyphics! I immediately signed up for an account and began to explore it over the course of a few days. For its time, HomeStead SiteBuilder was really advanced.

Shortly thereafter I became very well acquainted with Homestead and its site builder. I had created a nice little page with some basic info, some screenshots, and two pictures of myself that I scanned at a school scanner. I was web 1.0! Sometime during 1998 the thought materialized of creating a website of Greek MP3s to share with the world. Homestead allowed 20 or 30 MB of storage space per site, and from your account you could create multiple sub-sites, each with its own storage space quota of 20 to 30 MB. And so greekmp3s.homestead.com was born. With my trusty MusicMatch Jukebox I ripped a few CDs I had in “high-quality” 128kbps and uploaded them across a couple of sites, posting the download links on the original. I also added one of those crappy counters at the bottom and let things take their course. Luckily Homestead didn’t have any bandwidth cap back then, only a storage cap. Within a month I got 100 hits. Within six months I was around 5,000 hits according to the counter. Knowing what I know now, this most likely was total page views, not unique visits. Regardless, the site took off and I would upload new CDs whenever I got my hands on them. In my mind I wasn’t losing any money! Actually, in reality I wasn’t losing any money. Family members were purchasing the CDs for me, so they were the direct financial contributors to my acts of music piracy. Furthermore, I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. The issue of illegal online music distribution wasn’t even in its infancy yet.

Then along came Napster and made my life difficult. Napster became my source for music the instant I discovered it, but it severely lacked Greek music in its file sharing community. So while Napster was the premier online source for popular music, my little Homestead site was the place to get Greek music. Napster, as we all know, sent a tidal wave through the music and online industries. File sharing immediately became a legal gray area and Homestead was one of the first sites online to ban the uploading of MP3 files. All of my MP3 files on my Homestead account and sub-accounts were immediately purged. All my MP3 links went to 404 pages. Immediately I began to scramble through the internet looking for an alternative to host my MP3s on. I considered both Angelfire and Xoom (yes, before Xoom was a tablet or a money transfer service it was a free web host. Later became xoom.it after the Italians took over) but I settled with Geocities. I already had a Geocities account but Geocities had been acquired by Yahoo! in 1999. My tour of duty in the Yahoo! Star Wars chat room also began in 1999, so it made sense to move the file hosting over to Geocities. Unfortunately Geocities limited storage space to 15MB and I had to create many different Yahoo! accounts in order to host all of my files. The stint on Geocities did not last long. Yahoo! soon implemented the same rules as Homestead. By mid-2000 my site was defunct and the counter read a little over 23,000 hits. By then, other more efficient ways of music sharing had emerged such as Streamload and MySpace but I had lost interest. High School was in full effect and that began to take over. But for a little over two years I was the Greek Mp3 pirate king of the internet. And it was fucking awesome.