Its Summer again, and as the days get hotter, so does my inspiration to blog agian. All I really have to say right now is that I have started a tumbleog at hosvos.tumblr.com. Im gonna really try to make a go at this and bring the readership back up... not that I had that many readers to begin with. I'm going 1 post per day for the next 90 days.

Labels: summer tumblr hosvos tumbelog

Everyone's complaint with motion-capture, which was used to animate The Polar Express and Monster House, seems to be its inability to present realistic lip-synching. This week a new system was demonstrated that will be more effective in capturing all human movement, and also even cheaper and quicker for animators to use.

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Cabspotting traces San Francisco's taxi cabs as they travel throughout the Bay Area. The patterns traced by each cab create a living and always-changing map of city life. This map hints at economic, social, and cultural trends that are otherwise invisible.

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It appears that the full trailer for the new spiderman movie has been leaked online, and seems to be taken with a low quality camera from some audience screening. Despite the video the audio is still wort checking it out for.

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Let me preface this post by saying that all of these claims of a digg conspiracy are really dumb. I believe that there are some diggers that have figured out ways to set up accounts on digg so they can mass promote their own stories... Kevin Rose has said they are trying to stop this and he has coincidently dugg some of those stories himself. Every one and their mother is claiming that Kevin Rose is part of some conspiracy and he is deleting stories that have anything to say against digg. This is a stupid claim, the people that are getting that are burying the stories are in fact the users, and the digg community does not want to hear stories saying anything against their(and my) beloved digg.com. Then the rest of the stories get reported as dupes. I honestly think Kevin Rose and his company are dong their best to keep digg 100% user driven... And there will always be bugs, but people will find ways to accuse digg even when they are not at fault. All I know is that I am going to stick with digg for as long as its around and as long as people are on it. This is all going to blow over and sooner or later everyone will forget about it, and digg will continue stronger then it was before.

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Well this post is about a day late, but it seems like everyone has been talking about the new Google Calendar. So what is there to say about it? Well its a pretty basic little web-ap, but its very sleek and intuitive, and overall its extremely easy to use. The interface is very much like you would expect from Google, and is just like Gmail. However what really stands out about the service is two things. The ability to share your calendar with others, and to be able to view any calendar in an iCal or .ics format. One interesting thing here is that you can see when your favorite bands are touring, and when your favorite sports teams have games. The next thing is the SMS reminders for your appointments. You can ask to get a text message and it will be sent strait to your cell phone, unfortunately there is no support for Verizon yet. That pretty much covers everything... Check it out, its of good use to most. And as allays please e-mail me at hosvos@gmail.com and until next post its Irreversible Progress.
Related Tags: google, calendar, verizon, sms, ical

Sometime over Christmas break (when my blogging was at an all time low) I got really into the British version of the Office. I knew that it came out before the American one and I wanted to see the differences. I found that the shows were very similar... But Ricky Gervais (the boss in the British version) really makes the show.
If you compare the first episodes of both versions, the plot and many of the jokes are exactly the same. They have all the same type of characters and they all act the same way. Both bosses are incredibly "out-there" but Ricky Gervais who created the Office really takes the character farther. The show is done as if it is a documentary of a real office in England, and all of the characters are "aware" of the cameras. The best part is just how much everyone hates the boss, and how annoying and self centered he is. He tells plenty of jokes, that aren't funny but what is funny is the agony and silence of how not funny the jokes he tells are. The same goes for the US version. Both are extremely funny, and worth checking out.
After the office ended Ricky Gervais did another excellent show called Extras. In this one he plays an extra on a movie set, and he's allays trying to get a line in the movie he is doing. This show follows more of the traditional "TV show making" methods, but what is great about both shows is that there is no laugh track after something funny happens. In my opinion a laugh track these days just makes a show seem cheap, and if anything the makers use it as a kruch when they want audiences to laugh (as if we cant figure it out for our selves). Extras was showing on HBO in the US, and the second season is coming soon.
Finally Ricky Gervais did a podcast with his co-collaborators where they had all sorts of funny segments, and a great character named Karl. After about ten episodes they had a quarter of a million subscribers, and then they started charging about six bucks per show. I have stopped following the show, but I would imagine that they lost more then half of their subscribers, and I just hope they make it free again. If anything, podcasting should be free and should only be ad-supported.
Thats all I have about Ricky Gervais right now, I would appreciate it if you click on the google ads, and definitely send me an e-mail at hosvos@gmail.com, until next time its irreversible progress.
Related Tags: ricky gervais, the office, extras, podcast

That's what I'm going to call this feature of the blog. Every Wednesday I'll go through 10 links from my delicious, and digg accounts (which you can look at from the buttons in the sidebar) and I'll post a couple sentences about each and why I think their interesting. Here we go...

HERE is an interesting site that shows how a lot of companies will use a similar image of someone to use for their website, or the cover of a book. I guarantee you have seen some of these...

HERE are some pictures of a creepy museum exhibit with sculptures of larger then life people. They are extremely detailed and realistic and some are rather odd.

HERE is an insane video of a massive Rube Goldberg device to make Ramen Noodles... mmm Ramen.

HERE is a link that talks about the next version of the Toyota Prius, its supposed to get over 100 miles per gallon! I think all this hybrid stuff is awesome, and I am very interested in the whole "oil crisis" and global warming issues, so expect some more on that issue in the near future.

HERE is a story that talks about Serenity being released on the HD-DVD platform later this year. I loved this movie, and it is unfortunate that it didn't do very well. Universal is smart for releasing this on HD-DVD, mainly because the geek culture the loved this movie is also among the group that will adopt the HD-DVD technology early.

HERE are some pictures of the new Apple store that is under construction in New York, interestingly enough it is shaped like a giant cube...

HERE are some tips on staying up all night, no one wants to lose time sleeping, so heres a little guide giving the dos and donts of pulling an all nighter

HERE is a blog posting that talks about Sean Connery retiring from acting... IMO his last good movie was the Last Crusade, and if he retired five years ago, no one would have missed him.

HERE is an addicting puzzle game that has something or another to do with the Gorillaz

Umm there is no "tenth link" this week...
...Be sure to send me your e-mails at hosvos@gmail.com and until next time it Irreversible Progress.

(edit) I heard THIS song in the intro for Inside Man, and I also wanted to see if this will be playable in the browser.

Related Tags: serenity, sculpture, hd-dvd, sean connery, gorillaz, ramen noodles, rube goldberg, toyota, prius, apple, last crusade

What is there to say about this game? I honestly don't know, but I love where its going. Second Life is another Massively Multiplayer game, but the difference is that its not based on killing monsters, or gaining XP, its about being a member of this virtual society, and being part of an online economy. In the game you can buy land and build pretty much anything on it. Then you can create a store and sell things and make money, or get any kind of job. Then there are always events that get a lot of people to gather and socialize in the game. So it allows for people to be part of the community and set up a business. This is where it gets really interesting, players can take the money they make in the game and exchange it for real money. For instance, if I sold a bunch of shirts that I made myself in Photoshop and I made 10,000 Linden Dollars (the money in the game) I could exchange that into US Dollars and I get it all back based on whatever the exchange rate is. These virtual economies are really starting to pick up as more and more people are getting into MMO's. In fact people are starting to make money off of it, and in the game people and companies are buying land to advertise the company or their personal sites. As far as the "gameplay" goes, its not done all that well. The controls are not very intuitive, the interface for creating buildings is poorly done, and generally the game is slow from all the lag. Clearly this is a 1.0 version of the game, and It would be nice to see where it goes in the next few years... Clearly it will gain users, gamers and non gamers are into it, and its extremely scalable. Basically if you buy a lot of land in the game its the equivalent of buying a Linux server and paying for it monthly. To sum it up, its a great concept, it works now and its fun, and it will be incredible to see where it goes in the next few years. E-mail me at hosvos@gmail.com, and until next time its irreversible progress.
Related Tags: second life, virtual economy, game, online, linux

I was listening to the new TWiT podcast today, and they were (for much of the show) discussing Apple's "boot" camp, and what it meant for Apple and if it will get people to switch to Apple computers. In my opinion Apple makes some excellent windows machines. CNET has an excellent comparison of 4 different laptops running windows and it even compares the OSX Macbook with the Windows Macbook. And based on some reviews I understand that the gaming capabilities of the Macbook are good as well. Since I am a gamer, and that is the only reason my massive windows box is my main computer, this especially interested me. If when the Conroe Intel chips come out (supposed to be better at running both operating systems together), Apple releases a way to run the Windows environment within OSX, and the gaming capabilities are good, I will be completely sold. Apple will also be able to take a huge chunk out of Microsoft market (for people that only use windows). But the best part of this is that everyone wins. I get my beloved Mac OS, and I get the great gaming capabilities that I would find on a comparably priced Windows box. But most importantly is that Apple gets another computer sold, and Windows gets another disc sold. No one looses here. MS wins, Apple wins, the Comsumer wins, and that is the most important part. The only people that might be affected are Dell and Gateway and other manufacturers. But if anything this will spur more compition among the PC makers, and compition is all ways good.

Well that's that, basically I am glad that apple has taken this direction, and I would like to see what happens once OSX.5 Leopard comes out. Send me an e-mail at hosvos@gmail.com, and until next time (sooner then later I hope) its Irreversible Progress.
Related Tags: apple, twit, podcast, boot camp, microsoft, windows

In an effort to post more, and to test out this new interface (hope you all like it) I would like to talk about the first Rocky movie. I just recently saw the teaser for the new Rocky 6 which is supposed to be out towards the end of this year, and I decided I would watch 1 - 5 to get up to speed and saw that first one and I thought it was excellent.

I was expecting a lot of campy-ness and a lot of "cheese", but instead it was a good movie. I don't wanna go in depth about it, but what I loved about the movie was how Rocky didn't make the fight such a big thing. He trained and he trained but when it got to the point where he was fighting it was definitely glorified, but not too much. In every other movie the "big moment" is allays over done, and doesn't seem real. The montage in it was excellent, the characters were very dynamic and it felt kind of real to me. I don't know why, but the movie just seemed very well done to me, despite what I heard about it from other people. The whole relationship he had with Adrian seemed a little weird and kind of forced, but it take away from the story. The big fight at the end was great and I'm very excited to get Rocky II in the mail.

I hope you all like the cleaner look of the site, and I hope I will be able to keep these posts up after spring break. Please e-mail me with any questions or suggestions at hosvos@gmail.com.
till next time its irreversible progress...

So here is what I have discovered... I dont post at all because I have other things to keep me ocupied... I have been on the internet and done all my "news stuff" for all of today, and I have nothing else to do but think about stuff to blog about and today, im talking about WHY BITTORRENT JUST WORKS.

So Iused to be really into the Doors and I havnt listened to them in a while, but I decided to get my greatest hits CD back out and I was planning to rip it to my hard drive... however I noticed it on isohunt.com, and I noticed it had plenty of seeders and leachers, and once I started the download it said it would only take 6 mininuts. Thats less time then it would take me to put it on my drive and frankly it was alot less effort for my lazy ass. So whats my point here... just that its incredibly easy. It has gotten easier to download music for free, then to do it legally. And this is the first time I really noticed this. The only other way to get music that quickly onto to your computer is from a service like itunes, and that is why they are so sucessfull. Here is an ecample... you can go to a library and get a book and photocopy everypage... technically you own it, but no one does that because it takes to much time and its not easy. Same thing goes for almost every media that you can buy. And in some aspects its the only reason the people pirate things.

Any way I dont know where I was going with that post, but like I allways say Ill try to blog more, and I might redo the sidebar, I dont think i want a completly new theme. Remember to send me e-mails at hosvos@gmail.com and until next time, its irreversibel progress.

It looks like the folks over at myspace.com want to capatilize on the sucess of YouTube. They now let you upload videos and share them with your friends. You can also browse videos and comment on them. The service looks good so far but there are plenty of ads.

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