Archive for 'Blog'
newsFlash: Jeff MacArthur Discusses the Evolution of commandN on MacVoicesTV
Posted on 24. Feb, 2010 in All, Blog, newsFlash | No Comments
Jeff discusses the Evolution of commandN at Blogworld on MacVoicesTV.
newsFlash: Follow Jeff at decabled.com and commandN.tv
Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 in All, Blog, newsFlash | No Comments
Long time, no post – sorry 
.
I still have plans to do more stuff at JeffMacArthur.com but, until then, you might want to keep up with my musings at decabled.com and commandN.tv.
Thanks!
Jeff
newsFlash: Tiger Pig, Tiger Pig
Posted on 17. Oct, 2007 in All, Blog, newsFlash | 6 Comments
OK, this isn’t very recent news, but I just dug this up from an old email that Will Pate sent me. The link to more pics and the full story is http://www.frogview.com/show2.php?file=415 . Here’s the basics…
The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve.
After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veter inarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans that could be found quickly, were a litter of weaner pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.”
Wow!
webFed: Shining trailer (the Shining spoof)
Posted on 07. Sep, 2007 in All, Blog, webFed | No Comments
Since I haven’t seen this before (despite it being online for over a year ), I thought I’d share it with all of you. It’s basically a spoofed trailer for “the Shining” with Jack Nicholson that’s done in some kind of redeeming family flick style. Pretty funny …
newsFlash: New iPods and the iTunes Wi-Fi Store
Posted on 06. Sep, 2007 in All, Blog, newsFlash | No Comments
I kinda nailed the prediction for a new iPod that is almost exactly an iPhone minus the phone (and email), but I never got the chance to put my prediction in print first .
).webFed: Mac Mini newspaper vending machine
Posted on 23. Jul, 2007 in All, Blog, webFed | 3 Comments
This is a pretty unique use for a Mac Mini!
Scott Walker has taken an old newspaper vending machine, slapped in a 17″ LCD display on the front, and then hooked up a Mac Mini to stream newspaper front pages and more. Cool!
webFed: Colourful Optical Illusion
Posted on 13. Jul, 2007 in All, Blog, webFed | 3 Comments
It’s been a while, so busy. Maybe some more short posts would make it easier to keep up with my beloved blog?
iRant: Lost gets lost (and good riddance)
Posted on 24. Feb, 2007 in All, Blog, iRant | 11 Comments
I’ve finally done it. After multiple seasons of increasing disappointment, culminating in the most recent episodes (which have been plain ‘ol bad), Lost has been removed from the auto-recorded programs on my DVR. I’ve been talking about doing this for a while and if I didn’t get to see the show in beautiful hi-def (and I have to admit it’s still very nice to look at) then I would’ve done it long before now.
Lost is just a terrible, substanceless tease. Each week brings the promise of something new to be revealed, but there are no answers, only more (stupid, insipid) questions. Although the first season, and to some degree the second, were quite good as network television goes, the show how so “lost” its way that it’s very hard to believe that there is any over-arching story going on here at all.
Let’s face it – Lost was burdened by its concept from the beginning and should have ended after a couple of seasons (there’s a reason why Robinson Crusoe was such a quick read). What’s going on now is just a pathetically slow death kept on life-support entirely for business, as opposed to creative, purposes. Such is the way with television, but it’s hard to believe how low Lost has sunk.
Look at a show like Heroes (which I really like) – it, too, unwinds a continuing stream of new questions with each episode. The difference is that it also answers some of these questions every episode. If the makers of Lost could muster up enough pride to understand that this endlessly wavering series is not going to make it past another season then they’d smarten up and start writing their way out of this tangled mess they’ve created. At least then, after a final season of explaining what’s going on instead of just creating further shallow “mysteries” like some David Lynch series gone bad, viewers could look back and think that all in all it wasn’t a total waste of time – good first season, decent second season, some floundering in the middle, but boy did they wrap it up tight! However, given the decision-making that has brought the show to its current sorry state (and the lack of much competition on Wednesday nights), I’m not too optimistic about a “creatively principled” ending anytime soon.
eyeCandy: Alpha Dog (2007) 4/5
Posted on 14. Feb, 2007 in All, Blog, eyeCandy | No Comments
I didn’t know what to think when I first heard about Alpha Dog. I mean, was this going to be a Justin Timberlake vehicle or a serious movie. Turns out it is a serious movie, and quite a good one at that.
Alpha Dog is based on actual events: the kidnapping and subsequent murder of a crazed druggy’s 15 year old brother by a group of teenagers led by the local pot dealer/wanna-be-gansta. The movie is a disturbing look at the increasing disconnect between real life and the life depicted in rap videos and tabloid news.
Jake Mazursky (played by the talented Ben Foster, best known for his role as Claire’s boyfriend in HBO’s Six Feet Under) is a psychopathic, drug-abusing Jewish kid with some serious Nazi tats who owes teenage kingpin Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) $1200 in drug debts. The diminutive Truelove tries to play tough and is wholly outclassed by the crazed Mazursky, who demeans Truelove in his retaliation. When Truelove and his crew (including Mr. Justin Timberlake, who is surprisingly capable in his role) happen across Mazursky’s younger brother, Zack, Johnny decides kidnapping the kid would be some serious payback. Zack (Huff’s Anton Yelchin) is happy to party with the “big kids” (which is what he ends up doing after the first few hours) and figures he’ll be back home within days. Needless to say, things escalate beyond all reason.
Alpha Dog is ably directed by Nick Cassavetes, and has a great supporting cast, including Bruce Willis (Johnny’s dad), Sharon Stone (Zack’s mom), and the first I’ve seen (although it is brief) of Alan Thicke in years. The fact that this atrocity actually happened is totally disturbing, and it’s not exactly a movie that’d make your average parent very optimistic about raising a kid today (at least not amongst the idle rich in Southern California). That said, with the copious sex, drugs, and hip hop involved, that’s probably not the target audience anyway.
PS: I hope you didn’t expect a romantic movie for Valentine’s Day 
.
MacOnMacs: Canadian iPhone to use Rogers Wireless
Posted on 26. Jan, 2007 in All, Blog, MacOnMacs | 4 Comments
I thought I’d post this because I was asked about it in a recent comments thread:
Well, it’s looking pretty likely that Rogers Wireless will be the carrier for the iPhone in Canada. There’s been a slew of different reports on this (MacNN and many others) and I think yesterday’s CrunchGear post probably cements it, quoting an official Rogers rep as saying:
ÂRogers is actively working with Apple to launch the iPhone in Canada as soon as possible and will be the exclusive provider of the iPhone in Canada.Â
This makes sense because Rogers is the main GSM network provider here, but a quick peruse through the comments threads of various articles (like John Wiseman’s blog and the MacNN story referred to above) certainly shows a lot of displeasure at the prospect (including some insane price calculations for service that I can only hope are far off base). I’ve only used Telus in Canada, so I can’t really offer any firsthand opinions, aside from agreeing that telecommunications competition in Canada is not what it should be.
