The Tiger has been released.

Ok, the name sucks but I WANT ONE:

Philips’s iPronto TSi6400, the last remote you’ll never afford: We have no idea how they did it, but some crazy engineer at Philips found a way to outdo their previous efforts spent on the RC9800i remote—which we hear was dubbed by British Parliament as ‘The Remote to End All Remotes’. What we’re talking about here is the iPronto TSi6400, which features a color VGA resolution touchscreen, 400MHz Xscale CPU, 64MB flash memory and 64MB RAM, mic, headphone jack, stereo speakers, PC-card slot, 802.11b adapter, 8 nav buttons, 5 programmable buttons, rechargable li-ion battery, IR-learning capabilities, and it can even replicate your old remotes’ layout, displaying up to four simultaneously on-screen. You’re going to pay dearly for this though, oh yes. $1,700, dearly. Sell a kidney, whatever you’ve got to do.

[Via uber-review](Via Engadget.)

Ok, the gadget lust has subsided long enough for me to comment rationally. Now, iPronto… sigh. Look, I know we‘re to blame for the genesis of the iName for everyone’s iProduct out there in the iWorld… but cut it out, already. I’m not saying that only Apple should use iNames, but geezuz, get a hold of yourselves.

At any rate, no.. it’s highly unlikely I’d pay $1700 for a remote… but I still want one because it’s über and it looks like something you’d have on Star Trek: The Next Generation… but it goes on your coffee table. And that’s just how my brain is wired.

Of course, I’d need a much cooler home theatre setup before I could have something like this. Otherwise it’d be like having some awesome high-tech, killer dashboard on your yugo.

Update: Amazon has this for only $1430.99! heh.

I recently saw two movie adaptations of very good comic book properties. Both of them are based on works that were created by the God of Comics, Frank Miller. That’s about where the parallels end though.

The first was Elektra. The movie was not based on a particular story from any of the comics that featured the assassin character that Frank Miller brought to life. This is the second time she’s been on screen, though. Much like in the comics, we (as a movie-going audience) were introduced to her in the Daredevil movie. I found Elektra enjoyable, but I was pretty happy I caught it on Netflix instead of braving the theaters. Jennifer Garner does a decent job, but the character feels watered down. I don’t know if that was her, or the writing or the direction… but suffice it to say, comic book Elektra could kick movie Elektra’s ass.

Sin City, in contrast to Elektra, involved the creator of the original material. It was ripped straight from the graphic novels and flung up onto the screen in all it’s black, white and red glory. Robert Rodriguez lead the directing duties (along with Tarintino and Miller) and it’s obvious that Rodriguez got what Frank was doing with his books because I have NEVER seen a comic book so perfectly and faithfully adapted to the big screen.

I absolutely loved this movie. Besides being based on some of my favorite comics, it’s a wonderfully conceived, shot and constructed film.

Oh yeah… And, Marv could kick both comic book Elektra’s AND movie Elektra’s collective asses.

The Serenity (the movie continuation of Joss Whedon’s Firefly series which was cut down in it’s prime) Trailer has been released. It looks outstanding. September 30 is too damned far away.

In case you aren’t familiar with Firefly… it was the best damned television series ever. E V E R.

Lest anyone forget, events transpire to remind us that there are places on this planet that are still in the dark ages. One such place is Afghanistan.

(Sure, it’s better than it was when the Taliban ruled, but that’s like saying, “hey… it’s better to get your arm chopped off at mid forearm than at the elbow because that way you get a couple extra inches of stump!” Congradulations. You still have a fucking stump for an arm.)

Woman stoned to death in Afghanistan for adultery: Xeni Jardin writes: The public execution of a woman accused of adultery was the first such incident in Afghanistan since the Taliban were removed from power.

According to eyewitnesses, the 29-year old, named only as Amina, was dragged out of her parent’s house in Urgu District, Badakhan province by her husband and local officials before being publicly stoned to death. The man accused of committing adultery with her is alleged to have been whipped a hundred times and freed.

Link to Reuters story, Link to Amnesty International statement.

(Via Boing Boing.)

According to this Time article, the White House has nixed four (out of twenty four) industry representatives that were going to attend the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission to discuss telecommunications standards and regulations because they supported Kerry in the 2004 Presidential elections.

“We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and–call us nutty–it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that,” says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Uh, they’re industry representatives, not political representatives. If you need someone to represent the government, you send someone from the government. And besides, if they were supposed to be representing the White House, I don’t think the names would have been picked by the State Department.

We’re not talking about Joe Schmoe from some little company you’ve never heard of either. At least two of them were representatives from Nokia and Qualcomm. Yeah, you’ve heard of them, right? I’m no expert, but I think they’re fairly big players in the telecommunications industry.

Why this international telecommunications summit has been turned into some sort of partisan thing is strange to me. What’s the point? I thought President Bush was supposed to be a “uniter, not a divider“. Ok, you’re right… I never thought that. That’s just what he said.

Over at the game girl advance blog:

TV is Good For You: According to Steven ‘Emergence‘ Johnson in the New York Times, television makes you smarter. Why? Because it’s getting more and more like videogames in the following ways…[snip]

They go on to talk about Cognitive Multitasking, Learn by Doing, Emergent Television, ‘Interactive’ Television and The New Criteria for Smart Culture. It’s interesting, but, um… interesting doesn’t mean true.

AND, that bit of tid comes after THIS recent newsflash:

Email Worse Than Marijuana For Intelligence?: wallykeyster writes ‘The Guardian is reporting that a recent study at King’s College indicates that the average IQ loss of email users was 10 points (or six points more than cannabis users). Details on The Register as well. The Register has a related story about how computers make kids dumb and an apparent ‘problem-solving deficit disorder’ observed in children who use computers. I thought it was television that rotted your brain?’

That was all over the news (well, the RSS feeds I read, anyways) last week, but that snippet came from Slashdot.

I’m sure there are some cannabis fans out there who think this is some sort of victory or something, but most of the potsmokers I know are also email users. So they’re just screwed. Hope they watch a lot of TV.

Anybody else get the feeling that these researchers just make this shit up… maybe after getting stoned and watching and a lot of TV? What’s next? Researchers determine Cheetos make you a better lover…?

What do you do if you accidentally land your X-Wing in a swamp and you don’t have a friend like Yoda to help you get it out? You bust out your Amex Gold and buy one on eBay.

Now, if only I could find a place to park it…

(Via Dave Barry’s Blog.)

Whilst cleaning out directory full of miscellaneous files, I came across my favorite Emo Phillips joke:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and i saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. so I ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?”, he said.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
He said, “Like what?”
I said, “Well…are you religious or atheist?”
He said, “Religious.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?”
He said, “Christian.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
He said, “Baptist!”
I said, “Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
He said, “Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”
I said, “Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?”
He said, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”
I said, “Die, heretic scum“, and pushed him off.

:)

There’s lots of good stories out there about folks who have seen the light and are now Mac users. This particular blog entry by author John Scalzi is pretty funny though. He’s a reluctant switcher but is succumbing to the darkside… er, lightside… er, rightside. A snippet:

But even my body has decided the Mac is the way to go. Here’s how I knew I had a pronounced Mac affinity: The Mac and PC both use keyboard shortcuts, with the PC using the control button and the Mac using that wierd four-leaf clover/apple button. After just two days using the Mac, every time I used the PC keyboard I hit the four-leaf clover button rather than the control button. That’s after using PCs pretty much exclusively for the last decade. Two days. Tell me that’s not a sign.

Btw, John.. it’s called the “Commmand” key. Welcome to the fold. :)