Matt Stempeck

2007

  • must…deposit…paycheck

    there’s no denying that the iPhone’s incredible…

    iphone2.jpg

    But $600, WITH a 2-year Cingular contract?  Looks like after flirting with some Shuffle populism, Apple has returned to its most dedicated customer base: trust fund hipsters.

    and I was excited about the Apple TV, before realizing it will only show iTunes video content.

    slingcatcher.JPG

    What I was really looking for, and thanks to my coworker Chris Jones for pointing this out, was the Slingcatcher.  The people who made the Slingbox, which lets you watch what’s on your TV from a computer or cellphone anywhere, are now doing just the opposite, and letting you watch all your Divx movies, YouTube videos, etc. on your TV.  Being released for less than $200 around summer.

  • New Toys

    Tuesday is Macworld, meaning Apple will be releasing some new products. I’m pretty excited. The iPhone and “true video” (full screen) iPod are both rumored to be imminent.

    videoipod.jpg

    People have all kinds of wild expectations for both, but I think the key to the iPhone will be far more subtle than doing everything for everyone. Apple will make it easy to use with your computer. Companies like Verizon cripple the file transferring features in their phones so that they can charge you $4 for a 30 second clip of a song you’ve already purchased three different ways. They lost a class-action lawsuit over this, but their philosophy is still backwards. It’s my phone, it’s my data, I shouldn’t have to buy some $40 cable to connect the two. There’s still plenty of room for innovation, and hopefully Apple will be the one to pull it off.

    iphone.JPG

    Apple gave away a great audio player, iTunes, completely free. Except that once you’ve used iTunes to manage your 65 gig MP3 library, you just can’t go back to Winamp. And so you buy an iPod. And suddenly that free program made you excited to buy a $250 MP3 player. CNET predicts Apple will do the same thing with the iPhone.Another cool toy is the iTV, which will let you watch all your pirated video on the TV in your living room, just like the iPod let you listen to all your pirated audio.

    Anyway, I want a new cellphone and I’m going to hold out and see what this iPhone looks like, if it exists. I don’t use the word ‘need’, because my old phone works perfectly well, but given the looks I’m getting lately when I pull it out I should probably upgrade. The dream of carrying just my cellphone with me, instead of a cellphone, MP3 player, and camera, is so close, yet so far.

    I’m a pretty big believer in Apple and always have been (or at least since the original iMac). That being said, I’ve been using an iBook at work (is it even possible for liberal creative types to use anything else?) and I’m really not that impressed. Part of the problem is that I know how to do everything I want to on a PC and I feel like an idiot on an Apple when I can’t get a screenshot or print double-sided paper, but even after I found out how to do those things, they’re still kind of a pain in the ass. To someone who has never used a computer before, an Apple makes way more sense. To someone who has, a PC does.

    The other thing I hate about Apple is their new commercials. The hipster represents everything people hate about Mac users and you wish you could reach into the screen and smack the smug out of his face. The format has led to some entertaining parodies, however, such as the one below that pretty accurately compares the PS3 and the Wii and helps explain why the Wii’s kicking ass.

  • ps3 vs wii

  • Children of Men

    I saw this last week and it was amazing. The director, Alfonso Cuaron, is the guy who did Y Tu Mama Tambien (the first movie with subtitles I really liked) and Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban (the first really good Harry Potter movie).

    Slate calls it the movie of the millennium, because…it’s about our millennium:

    Though it’s set in the London of 2027, Cuarón’s film isn’t some high-tech, futuristic fantasy. It takes place in a grimly familiar location: the hell we are currently making for ourselves.

    The scariest thing about the movie was its plausibility. That, and the amazing camera angles and scenes shot like the cinematic clips interspersed throughout video games (specifically Half Life 2) that completely reset your expectations of how action flows:

    The sound and production design lay the groundwork for a convincing dystopia, but it’s Cuarón’s daring, fluid camera that brings this terrible world to life.

    But it’s emotionally powerful too. We take for granted the hope for the future that children provide, especially when you’re not around them for months on end, but this film reminds us how important they are to our nature. There’s one scene where raw humanity momentarily overcomes the din of battle that will stir anyone alive. I agree that Christmas day was an appropriate release date:

    Children of Men is a modern-day nativity story that’s far more moving and even, in its way, reverent than the current film by that name.

    This is definitely one of those movies that leaves you wanting an epilogue, and maybe also a prequel and sequel, but while Cuaron creates such rich worlds he also respects the audience enough to leave things open-ended.

    I clearly can’t write movie reviews, so go see it.

    Oh, and bonus points for using one of the most tragically beautiful songs I have ever heard, Sigur Ros’ Hoppipolla, in the trailer:
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=cwsgkurfCjE

  • Smoke free, DC

    Today, bars, restaurants, and workplaces across DC are at last smoke-free.

    No longer will Garret and Gwen come home with random burns on their skin from drunk girls waving fire around with reckless abandon.

    No longer will carcinogenic secondhand smoke be blown in our faces.

    But most importantly, this is a victory in the battle against unnecessary laundering. No longer will a perfectly clean sweatshirt or pair of jeans have to be washed simply because I spent twenty minutes at a happy hour.

    From the Smokefree DC FAQ:

    What’s wrong with smoking and non-smoking sections? Isn’t that a good way to make everybody happy?
    No. Smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants are misnomers. Smoke travels; it knows no boundaries. Having smoking and non-smoking sections is like have peeing and non-peeing sections in a swimming pool – it doesn’t work. Like that yellow substance in the water, smoke circulates, and everybody is exposed to it.
    Won’t bars and restaurants lose business if they go smokefree?
    No. Every reliable study of sales tax data shows that in localities that have gone smokefree, business is just as good – if not better – than when smoking was permitted.