New DJ Earworm! World Go Boom
via youtube.com
Really impressive as usual. DJ Earworm does it again.
The Panasonic PT-AE900U service manual, and how to fix a noisy projector
My projector is making crazy noise... probaby something to do with the dynamic iris. Anyway, I couldn't find this doc and ended up having to pay for it on one of these PDF document sites. Hoping to save people the trouble, I've posted it on my blog. Hopefully proper google link juice will cause this post to rise to the top and as a result, nobody will have to pay these spammy sites again for the document. *high fives*
These are the instructions I ended up following:If you have an AE900U that’s noisy most all the time then you probably have a faulty iris and your dynamic control is useless. For those that don’t want to send their unit in for repair and are brave enough to go inside, here’s how to shut down the iris: (1) Remove the lens shift lever by unscrewing it and giving a tug. It will pull right out. Be sure to unscrew it enough so you don't strip the threads. (2) Remove the screws on the bottom. There are little arrows on the chassis bottom pointing to the screw locations. (3) Remove one screw from the unit back panel. It’s the one at the top middle of the panel. (4) Lift the top cover off the unit. (5) Locate the main printed circuit board. It’s the one that has the 3 fancy ribbon cables connecting each LCD and right over/inline with the lens system. The board has several connectors around its sides. On the front side of that board find a connector in the middle labeled "A23". These connectors can be a bit of a pain to remove without snapping the plastic ends. Although you normally aren't supposed to yank on the wires to remove a connector this is typically the safest way with this type of connector. We use them in stuff we design where I work. So try to grab all the wires on that connector together then pull toward the front of the unit (inline with the wires as they leave the connector) to unplug it from the board. The iris is now unplugged. (6) Reassemble the unit in the reverse order, of course leaving the iris unplugged. (7) Turn the unit on and disable the dynamic iris in the system menu. Note: The unit doesn't know the iris is not working so it will not be optimally controlling the LCD. With the iris faulty the dynamic range (contrast ratio) will actually be worse than a system that doesn't use an iris. That's because the electronics is counting on the iris to do part of the job. This is why you must tell the projector to not use the iris so you can regain part of the dynamic range. Your projector should now be as quiet as when it was new.
Seu Jorge: Bringing a new level of beauty to Bowie
Had Seu Jorge not recorded my songs acoustically in Portuguese," Bowie noted in the album's liner notes, "I would never have heard this new level of beauty which he has imbued them with.
Life Aquatic, directed by Wes Anderson, was one of my favorite films of all time, not in small part to the relaxed and brilliant work of Brazilian singer and actor Seu Jorge. In addition to being the ship's safety officer, he also sings multiple acoustic guitar renderings of David Bowie's songs like Life on Mars with Portugese translation.
Wes Anderson is surely the Woody Allen of our generation.
Jimi Hendrix on the Dick Cavett Show: On success, compliments, money, and touching people in the soul
via youtube.com
And the performance on the show...
The Logical Song
I was listening to KFOX on the radio the other day in the car, and I was surprised at how subversive the lyrics of this classic rock song by Supertramp was. The first verse is awesome. I dig it.
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.Now watch what you say or they'll be calling you a radical,
liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won't you sign up your name, we'd like to feel you're
acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!At night, when all the world's asleep,
the questions run so deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.
"Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again..." --Steve Jobs
You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” - Steve Jobs
via appletell.com
The Internet is a larger % of GDP than Agriculture, Utilities, Education, and Communication (graph)
via theatlantic.com
Apple End-to-end integration vs. Microsoft licensing: "Only if you don't mind making crappy products"
Jobs’ relationship with Bill Gates goes back the furthest and is the most complicated. But the two pioneers of the PC era met one last time near the end of Jobs’ life and talked for several hours. Gates told Jobs that he proved his model—of controlling computer products from end to end—works. And Jobs said that Microsoft’s model of licensing out the OS to other manufacturers worked as well.
Only later did Gates relate to Isaacson: “What I didn’t tell Steve is that it only works when you have a Steve Jobs.” When Isaacson asked Jobs if he really thought the Microsoft model works, Jobs replied: “Yeah, it works, but only if you don’t mind making crappy products.”
via techcrunch.com
Why is licensing crappy? Simple. You can fire employees who screw up. Much harder to fire a partner, let alone a hardware partner who doesn't understand software but will basically add bugs the second they touch anything.
In 2003, when I was with the Windows Mobile team, this the primary reason why the product sucked so badly. But that's also why we could never make the iPhone.