The Dorky and Skewed World of Me
For the most part, I stick things here I don't want to forget, or things that I find might be useful to others. Thanks for visiting...
From MacOSXHints.com…
“You can force OS X to use LCD font smoothing on all displays with this Terminal command:
defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2
The number 2 here corresponds to Medium – Best for Flat Panel. You may also use 1 for light smoothing, and 3 for strong smoothing, as per the original OS X font smoothing options.”
I’m a little late in posting this, but I wanted to just the same.
On August 13, 2009 Les Paul died of complications from pneumonia at the age of 94.
Les Paul was was instrumental (no pun intended) in the development of the modern solid body guitar, inventing overdubbing (also known as sound on sound), delay effects such as tape delay, phasing effects, and multitrack recording.
He was also a great guitar player, and a dedicated one at that. In 1948 he was in a terrible car accident that shattered his right elbow. The doctors told him that the elbow would never regain any free range of motion, so Les told them to set the arm in an “L” shape so that he could still play guitar.
More info about Les HERE.
Thanks for all you did for modern music Les. You’ll be remembered.
The Tron Legacy concept test video has finally been made available at FlynnLives.com.
The download page is HERE.
Now that the sequel to 1982’s Tron, Tron Legacy, is getting a lot of geek press; questions about the director Joseph Kosinski are being voiced. Where did this guy come from? Why is he directing 2 high-profile movies (Tron Legacy, Logan’s Run) with no past movie directing experience?
Well, Joseph Kosinski has a lot of experience directing “artsy” commercials for companies like Nike, GM, and Ford. He also directed trailers/commercials for Halo 2 and Gears of War.
If any of his past work shows why he’s a good pick for Tron Legacy, it would be the commercial he did for Nike. Check out his work at http://www.josephkosinski.com/
Really?
They’ve even stated that they plan to open many of them near existing Apple Stores. You might ask yourself, what would a Microsoft Store sell? Apple actually makes computers AND the OS. What will we find inside a Microsoft Store? I think Penny Arcade hit the nail on the head…
Seriously though, my guess is that you’ll find a buttload of XBox games, XBox controllers, Microsoft peripherals, PC Games, and Microsoft software. Does that really warrant a store though? Especially since you can get all that at just about any electronics store?
This appears to be a movie that I’m going to have to see. It arrives in theaters, August 14th.
All Songs Considered ponders this question in their current Podcast.
My answer to the question currently is ‘yes.’ Record labels are still entrenched in the music industry and for your album to get any wide distribution you’re going to need a record label and all the resources that it provides. In the near future however, the role of the record label will shrink and shrink since the distribution of music is becoming easier and easier thanks to the internet. If you can generate enough internet buzz, your album can be successful.
People use Radiohead as an example of not needing a record label, but Radiohead already has a huge following, thanks in part to a record label or labels when they were breaking onto the music scene. They don’t have a label now, but they used to, when it mattered most.
For now record labels are still necessary, but their end IS near.
I’ve got say, I’m impressed. I’m not much of a fan of the current horror movie “scene” and I guess that’s precisely why I liked Rob Zombie’s rework of the classic horror movie, Halloween.
Rob Zombie co-produced, directed and wrote this retelling of the story of Michael Myers with impressive results. Zombie could have easily gone the Saw/Hostel route with this movie, with ultra-gorey special effects, and long drawn out torture scenes but instead he created a version of Halloween that stuck close to the original with fresh twists.
The music was good as well. He kept the original theme by John Carpenter which was totally necessary, but also included a creepier version of “Mr. Sandman” which was also in the original film. The song “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was quite comical one scene. Tyler Bates’ musical score kept the perfect amount of suspense without you actually noticing the music, which in my opinion means the composer did his job perfectly.
There were many shots in the Zombie version that were homages to scenes in the original movie, and Zombie even used fans’ knowledge of the original movie against them by making them think they knew where a particular scene was going by keeping the scene true to the orignal, and then changing it at the last minute.
I’d also like to point out that Zombie is a pretty damn good director. He managed to create angles that maintained suspense, intensified surprise, and kept the movie pacing perfect.
If you’re a fan of the original movie, give Zombie’s remake a shot. If a movie snob like myself can appreciate it, you won’t be disappointed.