Garfield minus Garfield

I know this has been everywhere recently, but I love it so much that I have to mention it here. Garfield minus Garfield is best described as it is on the site:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

It's an idea that's equal parts brilliant and insane. I mean, who would ever have the thought "I wonder what this comic would be like if we took out the main character?" It works though, in its own bizarre way.

The results are usually hilarious:




Often non-sensical:




Occasionally worrying:




And, more often that you'd suppose, poignant:




Major, major props to whoever does this (I can't figure out who it is from the Tumblr page). Now I'm curious what other comics, or even movies or TV shows would b like, if you removed one of the characters. I wonder what Batman would be like without Robin, talking to himself, occasionally saving himself from danger...

A few Oscar predictions

Just thought I'd pop in before things get too underway to make a few quick predictions. I'm not actually watching the proceedings, and I've only seen about half of the nominated movies, so I'm probably just as qualified as most to comment on this.

Best Picture, Directing, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Adapted Screenplay: No Country for Old Men
It would take one heck of a movie to best this one. It's big and epic and nearly perfect in execution, just the kind of thing the Academy eats up. The sound design is brilliant, hauntingly quiet for the most part, savagely loud where appropriate. It's also brilliantly adapted from the novel, nearly word for word in places, and different only in ways that I feel improved it (at least for a movie).

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
I may not have "gotten" this movie fully, but Day-Lewis gave the definition of a powerhouse performance.

Animated Feature: Ratatouille
Really, is there any competition? It may not be Pixar's best, but Pixar's worst is better than the best most other animation studios can do. Honestly, they should just call this "The Pixar Award".

Achievement in Special Effects, Sound Mixing: Transformers
I may not have liked the movie much, but the special effects were phenomenal, and a big part of that was the sound. I haven't seen many of the others in these categories, but they'd be hard pressed to be better than this.

And that's all I'm sure about. I either haven't seen enough of the nominees in the other categories, or I don't have much of an opinion. In the morning I'll check it out and see if I was right about any of these. Why am I not watching? First of all I'm busy watching 24 on DVD, second of all I have one last prediction:

The Show Itself will be Long and Drawn Out
The Oscars specialize in being self important, and self congratulatory, even if the host this year is an awesome choice. Besides, I'll be able to see the good parts on YouTube tomorrow.

UPDATE: Well, I called Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay for No Country For Old Men. Danielle Day-Lewis got Best Actor as I predicted. Also, predictably, Ratatouille took best animated feature. Other than that, well, I was wrong. There Will Be Blood was a fine looking movie, so I can understand it taking Cinematography. I'm thrilled that Once took Best Song. I haven't heard the competition so I wasn't going to make a prediction, but the music in that movie really was great. I'm curious about the Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Film Editing awards going to The Bourne Ultimatum. I can see editing, but I don't remember anything terribly special about the sound. Maybe that's why it won, though, by making itself invisible to casual observation.

Tough Guy

Tough Guy, originally uploaded by wireguy.

CAPTION: It's hard to act like a tough guy when you are riding the Merry-Go-Round, but some guys gotta try.

This makes me laugh every time I see it. I've had a long week and really appreciated the lift. I figured I'd spread some of that joviality, just in case.

One Dollar Challenge Presents: CAPTCHAed!

Time for another One Dollar Challenge!

This time the dollar goes to the first person who can explain to me why in the hell what I've entered into this CAPTCHA field is invalid:



To head it off, the "p" is not supposed to be capitalized, and the "T" is not supposed to be lowercased. I tried all four combinations of those to no avail.

While we're at it, let's take a moment to ponder the utility of security schemes that keep the good people out. On another site recently (can't remember which one), I ran into a CAPTCHA that was so distorted and scrambled that for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. That's a good way to ward off potential users, if that's your goal, but I don't think it is. Are there any solutions that balance usability with security? I'm somewhat a fan of math CAPTCHAs (random "what is 3 + 8" type problems), and "common sense" CAPTCHAs make a lot of sense too (these will ask something like "is fire hot or cold"). Has anyone seen anything better?

By the way, the audio CAPTCHA link doesn't work, so I guess Digg will have to do without my input tonight.

Dicking around your customers = bad idea

A few weeks ago I talked about the second MacHeist bundle. One of the apps included in that bundle was Speed Download 4, about which I had this to say:

Speed Download (normally $25.00) - I'm not sure I really get this one yet. So far it sorts downloads by type, and it gives you an iTunes like interface for all types of file transfers,including FTP and even iDisk. But I don't know that it's better than even the free alternatives. I'll have to look into it a bit more.

As of today I've uninstalled this application, and I don't plan to give it another look. Why? Several reasons, really.

First of all, I still didn't see much point in it. It had some nice things to offer, but it didn't really seem worth it. Second, it was actually a little annoying. Mostly this is because it sorted things into different folders based on file extension. That's great, except that I ended up with just about everything in the "Applications" folder, since most large downloads have sit or zip extensions. I could have customized this, but I didn't feel like taking the time, and once I had turned this feature off there didn't seem to be much benefit left (except for the ability to queue and resume large numbers of files, but there are free alternatives for that).

Those reasons weren't enough by themselves though, since I didn't actually pay a whole lot for it, and regardless I already had the license. No, it was the business practices of SD's maker, YazSoft, that sealed the deal. Long story short, they sold, via MacHeist, what were supposed to be full licenses. Now that Speed Download 5 is out though, they've changed them to "promo" licenses, which means that MacHeist buyers are not eligible for a free upgrade, even though everyone else who bought SD4 in January is.

Here are the relevant bits and pieces:

This version is the same as the currently released build of Speed Download in every way besides activation, which is required to track promo customers. You can upgrade to new versions using official, non promo releases through Yazsoft.com, or Speed Download's auto updating.
- from the bundle receipt

OK, so that's a bit ambiguous, but to me it reads as if the license I have is a full license. I'm willing to chalk that up to funny wording and/or my own inability to parse it correctly. However, there's also this:

Everyone that purchased SD 4 between Jan 01, 2008 and Feb 12, 2008, may upgrade to SD 5 for FREE.
- YazSoft's press release announcing SD5

Hm, so that says everyone, with no exceptions important enough to mention. Well, I did purchase it, and a full version too. And the final piece falls into place thus:

When asked if the promo version of SD4 was identical to the one we have on our website, the answer was a yes. The only difference was the activation mechanism, and this was simply so we can track how many copies were actually sold via the promo. Everything else about the promo SD4 and the regular SD4 were 100% the same.
At Yazsoft today, we have two versions of Speed Download that are 100% fully supported; SD4 and SD5. Our MH promo was for version 4 only, not version 5. We are not in obligated in any way to CARRY OVER promos.
- from YazSoft's official response to these complaints

So, what they're saying is that we bought full, 100% versions of the software, but not the same upgrade rights that go along with such a purchase. That seems a bit fishy to me. And am I the only one who thinks that the second paragraph doesn't follow logically from the first? "Identical in every way except this one... and also in this other way that we didn't bother to mention before?"

Part of the deal with MacHeist was that we were purchasing full licenses, not promo licenses. Slipping the term "promo customers" in there looks to me like a sly way of backing out of honoring their own 30 day grace period for upgrades. If the version sold through MacHeist wasn't a full version, or had any limits attached to it, then all they had to do was say so up front. Other apps, now and in the past, have done so and no one's complaining.

There's also the fact that they're twisting things around so that those who are complaining look as though they're demanding something more than they were offered. No one is claiming that SD5 was part of the deal, nor are we asking for a handout. The simple fact is that we purchased full versions of this program within the free upgrade window. Period. Trying to blame MacHeist for this is just muddying the waters. And actually, MacHeist isn't too happy about this either, and in one post in the forum thread about this one of the "Directorate" called the YazSoft guys "weasels".

Personally, I don't care that much. As I said I don't really like Speed Download. But I also don't like being promised something and getting something else. That's bad business, and has already lost them a number of potential customers (though who knows if the vocal minority is representative of anything they should worry about). In fact, another company is reportedly poised to profit from YazSoft's mis-step. Presenta, makers of iGetter, is supposedly going to announce a competitive upgrade price for anyone who purchased the MacHeist bundle (so far I'm actually fairly impressed with iGetter, it seems a lot more streamlined, though I haven't used it much, and I'm still not sure I need a download manager). Not good for YazSoft's bottom line, I'd imagine.

Am I off base in being less than impressed here? Some seem to think so, and are either defending YazSoft or blaming MacHeist themselves. So, what do you think?

News Flash: Pareidolia causes man to see something important in random patterns of light and color!

Good stuff here:

Atheist Sees Image of Big Bang in Piece of Toast

It's interesting how obviously ridiculous things like that seem (faces appearing in toast) when you just change the context a little bit.

For a little more perspective, the tendency of the human brain to see patterns where none exist (for example the faces of mythological figures on grilled cheese sandwiches) is called "Pareidolia". As a survival technique, so the theory goes, human brains are hard wired to recognize things that are important to our survival. That includes human faces (thus the man in the moon, the face on mars, the old man in the mountain, etc.), and symbols which represent our beliefs (images of religious icons, for example, like the monkey tree phenomenon). It's not a miracle, it's just the way we work.

Still don't believe me? Then tell me what this looks like to you -> :)

If you said a smiley face, then you're just as susceptible to pareidolia as the rest of us. After all, it isn't a face, it's just two dots and a curved line that really look nothing like eyes or a mouth. This is the same reason that cartoon style drawings work, not to mention the iconography in warning and street signs, and rorschach tests (a.k.a. ink blot tests).

For a whole lot of pareidolia, and not a little irreverence, check this out.

One Dollar Challenge presents: "Just Once"

Introducing a new feature here on Life In Idle, the One Dollar Challenge. Here's how it works: I find something that "people are saying" that really bugs me, and I offer up one dollar to anyone who can prove that what they're saying is true. I will literally buy a stamp and an envelope and mail you a dollar bill if you successfully call my bluff. It's not much, I know, just think of it as a symbolic victory, made all the sweeter because I obviously think I'm right.

The first entry in the One Dollar Challenge should give you a pretty good idea of the type of challenge I'm talking about, so let's get to it.

I recently watched the movie Once for the first time. After watching it I popped online to see what kinds of things people had said about it. On IMDB, of course, people had all kinds of very strong opinions, both good and bad. One of the most common negative comments was that the music was too simple and/or not very good. Fair enough, we're all entitled to our opinions, but then this comment caught my attention:

Everytime [sic], he played his music to someone, they would be at an [sic] awe in the first few notes played

That came from this page (this is part of the forum, you'll have to register to read it).

The challenge is to find me one time, just once (natch), that someone in this movie got all googly eyed after only a few notes. It doesn't happen at any time in the movie. Not even once.

I'm confident I'll be holding on to that dollar.

Quick thoughts on There Will Be Blood, others

I'm going to try something a bit different for a bit, posting small thoughts since the longer, more thoroughly planned out posts take too much time and don't seem quite worth the wait anyway.

I just got back from seeing There Will Be Blood with a friend. And, um... huh. I'm not quite sure what to think. It was certainly a brilliantly made movie, both the direction (including cinematography, etc.) and acting were superb, and I even liked the quirky music. I'm just not sure that I "got" it. As my friend said as we were leaving "I'm not quite sure where it was trying to take me".

As I said, we both thought it was masterfully made, just a bit confusing in what it was trying to say. I may have to see it again when it's released on DVD.

Personally, I'm still pulling for No Country For Old Men for Best Picture. It was equally as well made and performed, equally as atmospheric and shocking, but it also had a solid plot. Both movies invite you to reflect on what you are seeing, to think about it for yourself as they give you their minimalist vision, but No Country seemed to be a bit more solid underneath. I've only seen each one once though.

I would, however, back Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor, without hesitation.

Oh, and while I'm at it, Cloverfield was brilliant for what it was (I'm giving it the achievement in special effects award for 2008 right now, wow), Mr. Brooks is a crafty and unusual thriller (I told you Kevin Costner could be great in the right movie), and Once is a beautiful slice of life film that fans of "singer/songwriter" music shouldn't miss (just be ready for the sometimes indecipherable Irish and Czech accents).