Charlie Sheen Live Webcast, Twitter Battle with Roger Ebert, Tiger Blood Thundercat!

Charlie Sheen has been flexing his media muscles this week, fueled by tiger blood, Adonis DNA and Marlboro Lights - in his latest move, he has broadcast a live video show on UStream called "Sheen's Korner":



Video streaming by Ustream


As the tagline says - "you're either in Sheen's Korner, or with the trolls". Segments include "People Who Wish They Were Me Forever" (such as Dr. Drew Pinsky), and "I Kinda Wish I Were Them For Ten Minutes", which included Colin Farrell, Sean Penn and Giants pitcher Brian Wilson. There was also an installment of "Winning News", and the unveiling of a "Winning" tatoo on Sheen's wrist. The show was very rough around the edges, but it sounds as if it may be back on a regular basis.

150 of the Best Movie Quotes Ever

A brilliantly edited video bringing together 150 of the best movie quotes ever - your favorites are all in here:

Charlie and the Apple Factory

Charlie finds a Golden Ticket and a chance to find out what makes Apple products so special:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

iPad 2 Details - Nice Upgrade, Nothing Shocking

The iPad 2 was unveiled today, with an updated dual-core A5 processor, front and rear-facing cameras, and a thinner form factor (even thinner than the iPhone 4!). The biggest and most welcome surprise was the presenter - none other than Steve Jobs, looking fit as ever in his turtleneck. The processor and graphics improvements are supposedly twice as fast, processor-wise, and nine times the graphics capabilities. An update to IOS, version 4.3 was announced as well as the availability of Garage Band and iMovie on the iPad at $4.99 each. The iPad will be available on both AT&T and Verizon networks in different versions for each, as well as two colors - white and black. The addition of cameras will make FaceTime a standard across iPhones, iPads and Macs. A new Apple first-party case as also featured - sorry, Steve says it's not a case, its a cover - a Smart Cover (also available in multiple colors). A $40 cable will allow 1080p output to a television - no word on DRM limits yet. 720p video capture from the rear camera will give you something to edit in iMovie, while the front camera records at VGA resolution for video-conferencing. Units should start shipping on March 11th.

Some of the major rumors that didn't come true - no enhancement of the display, no "uber speaker", no SD Card slot, no high-speed Thunderbolt sync port, no wireless syncing, no free MobileMe service, no 4G support, no early iPhone 5 announcement. Overall, the iPad 2 seems like a maintenance release, keeping pace with the Motorola Xoom and HP Touch Pad. Apple will not be falling behind in the tablet race for the next few months, but they didn't exactly jump ahead either.

I guess we can chalk it up to the hype machine creating unrealistic expectations, but this all seems a little blah. Pricing and battery life will remain the same as the iPad's. The original iPad's have been discounted by $100 - without any huge reason to upgrade, these might be the best deal out there.

The Life of The Honey Badger - Hilarious Narration by Randall

"Ewww - It's Chasing things and eating them!"

Randall's play-by-play takes animal documentaries to a whole different level!

NSFW



Thanks to Steph for expanding my horizons with this!

Predator as an Opera

Arnold's seminal jungle massacre classic reimagined as an opera - incredible job!  "If it bleeds, we can kill it!" - Must watch!

Live Mesh Beta Brushoff - Microsoft shoots itself in the foot, again.

Microsoft reinforced renewed doubt about the safety of data in cloud-based services, while squandering the opportunity to promote themselves as a competent cloud service provider.  When following a site or service from the beginning, we enjoy a veteran status, good username, or some form of loyalty reward.  I just participated in the beta of Microsoft's Live Mesh for over a year.  You would think that when they offer the next iteration of the service, they would send an e-mail about the new features.  Instead they sent this e-mail:

"Dear Live Mesh beta participant,

You're receiving this message because you used the Live Mesh beta from Microsoft. On March 31, 2011, the beta of Live Mesh will end, and the Live Mesh beta will stop working. After March 31, you won't be able to access any files stored online in your Live Desktop or connect to your PCs remotely using the Live Mesh software. Microsoft will not be able to help you retrieve any files you have stored online after this date. Your files will also stop syncing between your computers and your Live Mesh online storage. Please read below for actions we recommend you take.

With the new release of Windows Live services, we've made a series of changes and improvements across the products. We realize they will have an impact on you and we want to make that as easy as possible for you. We thank you for your continued support of Windows Live services.

Why is this happening?

To deliver a better product for all our customers, we combined several services into a new product called Windows Live Mesh. Windows Live Mesh has several performance and reliability improvements compared to the Live Mesh beta, and with Windows Live Mesh, you can also sync your program settings for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. Learn more.

What you need to do before Live Mesh beta shuts down

To prevent loss of any of your files, please sync all files from your Live Desktop so that you have them on your computer when the Live Mesh beta service is shutdown. To do this, follow these steps:

1.       On your Live Desktop, right-click any Live Mesh folders not yet synced with your computer, and then click Sync with this computer. Make sure all the folders on your Live Desktop have desktop shortcuts.

2.       Select where you want each folder to sync, and then click OK. If a folder has a lot of files, this might take a while. Open each folder and make sure all the files are downloaded.

What you can do moving forward

If you enjoyed the functionality of Live Mesh, we encourage you to install the new Windows Live Mesh. You will first need to uninstall the Live Mesh beta, and then go to http://explore.live.com/windows-live-mesh to get the latest version of Windows Live Mesh. Before you do this, note the folders that you're syncing on each computer and if they're shared with anyone. After you download Windows Live Mesh, you can set up these folders to sync again. Learn more about how to upgrade

Thank you for participating in the Live Mesh beta. We hope you choose to move to Windows Live Mesh.

Sincerely,

The Windows Live team"

Really?  How bout this - "Thanks for assisting in our beta - welcome to the release!".  Instead, Redmond serves up "let's put a barrier between a community of veteran users and the relaunch", along with a side of "by the way, in one month, we're going to delete your data (or at least remove your access to it).  Epic Marketing, Brand and Service Fail.  Live Mesh is actually great - but obvisously Microsoft will find a way to kill it.  Microsoft is asking us to follow them "to the Cloud!".  Ending a service and endangering people's data is no way to promote Cloud Computing or clients' trust of storing data on hosted web servers beyond our control.

Wow, one day with a Mac and I am already bashing Microsoft.

I Got a Mac - and the World is Still Spinning!

Thanks to the thoughtfulness and generosity of my co-workers, I am now the proud owner of a MacBook Air. It's pretty sweet. I am getting the hang of OSX and have managed to join my Windows Active Directory (helpful article on this here), install Office 2011, sync up my Outlook, and now create a blog post. So far, so good - the Air is quick and responsive, even with several programs running (and installing) simultaneously. The construction and design are phenomenal - it really doesn't feel much heavier than my iPad.

As a PC user for over 20 years, I never thought I would be using a Mac. The iPhone, then iPad, slowly won me over, and with the compatibility of most of the applications I use on both platforms, its definitely a good time to take the plunge. Once Starcraft 2 finishes installing over the network, I'll really be able to give this thing a shakedown. More to come as I learn the details of what it can do.

So, hell hasn't frozen over, and I am on a Mac, and to be completely honest, I am loving it. It's warm and sunny here in Steve's Reality Distortion Field.  I guess it was inevitable since the first day I was inspired by the cogent logic and elocution of Ellen Feiss:

iPad 2 Presentation on March 2nd - What will be announced?

Official invites went out today for the Apple "special event" scheduled for next week at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco - where the iPad was unveiled in January of 2010. As seen in the image above, it looks like Apple is being pretty upfront about what it will ve unveiling on March 2nd - the long-rumored iPad 2.

While we still have time to dream and wonder, here's what we believe the iPad 2 will probably look like. It is likely to be slimmer and lighter, with a new processor, reportedly Apple's A5, which is also rumored to be the engine for the iPhone 5. At least a front-facing camera for FaceTime and other video-conferencing apps is expected, and many expect a high-resolution rear camera as well. An "uber-speaker" has been postulated, based on leaked case designs. A separate video processor is also expected, leading to speculation that the rear camera and power will add up into a hi-def video capture and editing capability - recent discussion of Final Cut for iPad reinforces this.

There is also a good chance that Apple will announce at least the release date of OSX 10.7 Lion, if not display a feature list.

With Android, Windows, and WebOS tablet competition hitting the market, Apple COO Tim Cook will have some big presenting shoes to fill in Steve Job's absence. There has been recent backlash against Apple's closely-controlled App ecosystem. Apple will need to make some significant strides forward with this product to keep ahead on technology - whether the Apple mystique can compete long-term in a crowded mobile market with huge price pressures is more of a question today than it ever has been before.

Or is this just a sideshow until the iPad 3 "Fall Surprise" hits?

Earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand

Photo from CNN.com

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake has struck in Christchurch, New Zealand, causing buildings to crumble, phone and power line outages, and toppling the 147 year-old Christchurch Cathedral's steeple. Reportedly, 80% of the city is currently without power.   The area is still recovering from a 7.1 quake in September - hopefully reinforcements since then spare injury.

Here's a live feed to local news: http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/3NewsLiveStream/tabid/876/Default.aspx

There are reports of aftershocks - YouTube video from local news:



Latest news from Channel 3 via Twitter: http://twitter.com/3newsbreaking

Angry Birds Playable Birthday Cake!

Some very devoted parents built this for their son's birthday - very cool! You can almost hear the pigs snickering when he misses.

Beautifully drawn Angry Birds by Shane “Das Chupa” Parker.

50 Great Facts About Goodfellas

Check out this article at Shortlist.com which lists 50 little-known facts about Goodfellas such as these:

"The dinner scene with Tommy’s mother is largely improvised, including Tommy asking if he could borrow her butcher’s knife and the paw/hoof debate."

"For a film renowned for violence, GoodFellas has a relatively low body count of 10."

"The legendary Steadicam tracking shot through the nightclub kitchen was an accident. Scorsese (right, with De Niro), who didn’t even like using Steadicams at first, had been denied permission to go through the front door and had to improvise another plan. He decided to do it in one long shot to symbolise “Henry’s whole life being ahead of him, doors opening to him. It’s his seduction of Karen and it’s also the lifestyle seducing him”. The shot had to be redone eight times — not because of complications choreographing it, but because it ends on comedian Henry Youngman performing, but Youngman kept fluffing his lines, spoiling the close of the scene."

"Scorsese first heard of Pileggi’s book Wiseguy when he was handed an early proof copy while shooting The Color Of Money in Chicago. Although Scorsese had sworn off making another gangster flick after Mean Streets, he immediately called the writer and told him, “I’ve been waiting for this book my entire life.” Pileggi replied, “I’ve been waiting for this phone call my entire life.” They agreed to co-write it there on the phone."

Great stuff - as if I needed motivation to watch Goodfellas again!

http://www.shortlist.com/entertainment/article/938/50-useless-but-genius-facts-about-goodfellas