Digital Arrhythmia

• 2009-10-07

  MIT’s interest is not to find the most capable geeks, it is to find balanced individuals with a broad range of interests, who are are likely to become the leaders of tomorrow.

  — via Slashdot

• 2009-09-22

  1080p video decoding support in AppleTV

  XBMC developer Davilla has apparently found a way to get hi-def video decoding (up to 1080p) on low-end hardware such as an AppleTV. The trick involves swapping the ATV’s wireless card for a Broadcom BCM70012 PCIe video decoder, which can be found on eBay for about €20. Here is a shot of the insides of an AppleTV, courtesy of iFixIt:

  

  This is a really neat trick, and if Davilla and the XBMC team manage to pull this off, you can expect to see a large number of used AppleTVs flying off of eBay’s virtual shelves. I just snatched a refurbished 40GB AppleTV for $150 USD (about €100), ordered one of those BCM70012 babies, and starting next week I’ll be testing out the latest SVNs of XBMC on this thing.

  A 1080p-capable media center with HDMI, optical out, component out, infrared receiver, low power consumption, running XBMC, and a form factor that just begs to be sitting right in the middle of the TV shelf, for less than €130?

  Count me in.

• 2009-09-14

  Shawn Blanc on Yojimbo 2.0

  Shawn Blanc gives out an incredibly thorough review on the latest release of Yojimbo, an information organizer for OSX. The ouverture alone is sure to pull a few laughs:

  Four out of five of you are nerds. On your computer exists your hobbies, your current and/or future career, and the rest of your daily life. You don’t own a snowboard, but you do have a blog, a Twitter, an RSS reader, and a pirated copy of Photoshop.

  Yojimbo is my favorite ‘throw-everything-and-anything-in-here’ software, although the lack of an iPhone app does make me consider switching to Evernote every now and then. It also had a much needed app icon revamp:

  

  (via Gruber)

• 2009-09-12

  It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one’s thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.

  — Isabel Colegate

• 2009-08-25

  Fake Steve Jobs is friends with Vladmir Putin

  

  And he just got permission to publish some of the emails they’ve been exchanging.

  Good Advices: How Apple Must Crush Defectors in Palm

  American reward for traitor Belenko is substantial at first – trust fund, consulting fee, home in California, and so on. And then, one day Belenko is having small car accident, details of which are unclear, but involve sudden loss of steering and loss of brake and fire of curious intensity which is normally associated with white phosphorous not gasoline. (…)

  Of course I do not suggest that such things happen to all traitors, such as former employees of Apple who are now having trust fund, consulting fee, home in California thanks to Palm.

  Former Apple employees now at Palm cringe and wince. And the follow-up:

  Intent was not to threaten unilateral military action of Russian Federation against Palm Inc., subsidiaries or employees. Unlike some countries, Russia does not believe in military adventurism. (…)

  America is not motivating with whip. America is wanting nothing but cake. Cake all the time. Americans do not think of using whip in managing peoples. They are thinking “Sun Tzu” is tiny purebred dog. They are thinking “Machiavelli” is new drink on Starbucks menu.

  Hilarious.

• 2009-08-20

  Flickr Yanks Image of Obama as Joker

  

  A classic example of the streisand effect. Apparently, Flickr decided to remove the iconic Obama/Joker image from a user’s photostream, citing copyright issues. Thomas Hawk gives a thoughful commentary on the situation:

  Personally, I think it’s unfortunate that Flickr would embark upon yet another act of censorship when an image was so clearly parody and fair use. What bothers me even more is that this is still another example of Flickr censoring users who are critical of President Obama and his policies. In June Flickr deleted the entire account and photostream of Flickr user Shepherd Johnson after he posted comments critical of the President on the Official White House Photostream.

  And now the news already hit the Los Angeles Times, The Inquisitor, and Slashdot, bringing said image to thousands, if not millions of people to see.

  Ironically enough, the image above is sourced from a Flickr photostream.