Mid-Atlantic Leather 2010

Moved this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2010/01/mid-atlantic-leather-2010.html
 

What is a “Bear”?

Moved this post to the Sounds Kinky-er blog:
http://soundskinkyer.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-is-bear.html
 

Dream Journal: January 19, 2010

Tiny little dream this time:

I was riding my scooter along a country road — one lane each way, gravel siding, untrimmed grass beyond that, telephone poles, etc.  I came upon my friends Roger and David walking along the siding, so I stopped to give them a ride.

My scooter was now a motorcycle built for three — three complete seats.  I didn’t have spare helmets for them, and in fact didn’t have one for myself.  I pulled the hood of a black rain coat over my head to disguise the lack of a helmet and we rode along, hoping to not encounter any cops.

Eventually the land beyond the road sloped away down to the ocean or a big lake.  We pulled over to stop — I don’t know if it was to let them off or to look at the body of water — and the bike skidded and threatened to tip over in the gravel.

That’s pretty much it.  Roger, David, and I were all in Washington DC last weekend for Mid-Atlantic Leather, and we were on the same flight coming back.  They offered me a ride home (since they live nearby), but my boyfriend was coming to pick me up, so I passed.

In June 2009, I had a small spill on my scooter, pulling into a gravel parking lot.
 

Apple Tablet Predictions

Assuming that an tablet-like thing is actually announced on January 27, of course.  (And what would the reaction be if one were not?  Apple would need to be announcing some other fantabulous game-changing device instead, just to distract people from what they didn’t announce.)

So given the idea of something tablet-y being announced, what will it be like?

I think people are putting a lot more stock in the idea of it being a Kindle competitor than it’s worth.  I think that eBooks will be a secondary focus, but not a top tier one.  (Think of the iPhone announcement, where they touted Phone, Web, and iPod as the top items.  Stuff like texting and calendar and e-mail were second tier, important and even the things that really interested some people, but not the primary focus.

I think a lot of people are fascinated by the form factor idea of the walk-around tablet without much consideration of how that will actually be used.  If you’ve got an iPhone and you’ve got a desktop or laptop system, do you need a tablet?  The answer is “No… except when you do need one.”  This is what people are missing, in my opinion: when do you need a tablet (vs. those other devices) and what do you do with it when you don’t need it.

So here are some predictions, none of them surprising:

• Screen of 10–11" — big enough for reading or viewing video, but not any bigger than a regular sized magazine.
• Very minimal hardware interface, just an on button and a headphone jack.  No power jack, no USB ports, nothing much to mar the feel of it being an encapsulated item.  Definitely no battery access.
• Bluetooth and WiFi.  Duh
• Runs a variant of iPhone OS that is geared for the larger screen but still works with the same UI mechanisms familiar to iPhone users.
• Apps for the tablet can be obtained from a version of the AppStore.
• Existing iPhone apps will work on the tablet, in iPhone sized windows.
• Has all the features of an iPhone: multi-touch, accelerometer, etc.
• OLED screen

And then some more interesting predictions:

• Induction charging and synching.  As I said, no power jack.
• A netbook-type base which provides the induction charger base and a MacBook keyboard, a la the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid.  Tablet body can be inserted into the docking base in each of the four directions (but not backwards!).
• When docked, can switch from the iPhone-style UI to a Mac OS X-style UI.
• The docking base has additional solid-state memory, plus the various ports and such.  Comes with iWork and iLife software pre-installed, and other apps are available via the cloud.
• Has two cameras: decent quality video/still camera on the back (a la iPhone 3GS) and webcam on the front.

In other words, two questions answered:

• When do you need it?  When the walk-around nature of the iPhone isn’t enough.  For reading, for browsing the web better, for watching video larger, for apps that haven’t been invented yet which take advantage of the tablet nature.
• What do you do with it when you you don’t need a tablet?  You turn it into something you do need (if you need one), a netbook/laptop.  Something that you can write on, edit photos with, do web designs with, etc. — all the things that the iPhone isn’t really geared for.

This, I would so buy.

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Updated on January 19, 2010

Updated on March 1, 2010
 

Suport XXX ribbons are over

Officially over, I think.  Because “gamers” are so put upon, marginalized, and targeted by their affliction that they need public awareness and “support”.

(“Targeted”.  Heh.  That’s good.)

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Updated on March 1, 2010
 

Tongue Twister #3

Pan panned the paladin’s pangolin palanquin.
 

Movie Review — Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes was better than I expected it to be.  And I suspect that is at the heart of most of the reasonably positive reviews the movies has received.  Because frankly (at least until the reviews started breaking), I was expecting something along the lines of Van Helsing — vaguely period trappings, but reeking of anachronism, and filled with quick cut editing, too clean sets, and perverted steampunk gadgets.

This one… well…

• It did feel a little anchronisticly self-aware, but not so much that loads of modern quips fell from the characters’ lips.  (And thankfully, neither did much in the way of “Bloody fair cop, guv’nor, wot?”, that shite that brands something as trying too hard to show it is Victorian low-class London, like Eliza Doolittle on a bad day.)
• The quick cut editing that I so expected was refreshingly suppressed.  Oh, it was there, but there was also obvious real fight choreography, where the action lasts more than 1/2 second per shot.  And probably the previsioning of fights that Holmes did in a couple places helped to make the quick cut editing attached to those bits more acceptable, more able to be followed.
• The CGI setpieces used in distance shots were too clean for my tastes — London didn’t feel dirty enough — but the real or closer sets felt much better.
• The steampunk gadgetry was kept to both a minimum and had a level of realism.  When I want unreal steampunk (and I do!), I read Girl Genius.

A couple other thoughts:

• I was moderately surprised that, in the midst of the threat against Parliament, there was no threat against Queen Victoria.  How restrained!
• Also restrained: nary a mention of Leather Apron.  (Unless that was behind the comment about other women having also been killed by Lord Blackwood.  And in fact, Blackwood’s victims number does match that of the “canonical five”.)
• Curious that they didn’t try to blow up Parliament.  Oh, wait, that was Guy Fawkes, not Guy Ritchie!  Wrong movie.
• I forgot about the comment that Holmes and Watson had been partners only 7 months, so I didn’t expect that the hidden villain reveal would be who it was.
• Of course, having read way too much Alan Moore reimagining of turn-of-the-century Britain fictionality, I had the fact that the villain was so totally hidden that all we ever saw were his gloves (not even his hands) pegged as being Hawley Griffin.  And thus that Griffin, derobed, was behind the final defeat of Blackwood.  (Of course, that’s still a possibility, no?)

I am definitely looking forward to Iron Man 2, though, so we can see Robert Downey Jr. continue playing this same character into another film.