Blatant Advertisement

So I thought I'd toss up a couple ads that have come up on my site that caught my eye for one reason or another:

Uploaded with Skitch!

There's something of a Ying/Yang balance going on in that advertising bar.

This advertisement has no such balance:

Uploaded with Skitch!

Oh boy! A free weekly column from Ann Coulter! While you're at it, do you think you could rip open my hard drive and defecate inside? Or perhaps you could just sprinkle some anthrax inside the fan box and then give me a blood transfusion from an ebola-infected monkey...

And finally:

Uploaded with Skitch!

These are almost certainly a result of my post about POLITICAL coverage. Why don't these advertisers use negative keywords like "political" and "campaign" and save themselves a few bucks and from annoying people by bombarding them with insurance ads?

HandBrake

I was given an iPod Touch for Christmas!

However, instead of posting about the iPod touch (there are hundreds of websites extolling the virtues of the product) I'm going to talk about an awesome program for creating content to put on the iPod Touch.

HandBrake

Uploaded with Skitch!

"It is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter."

I've used it to rip some DVDs to my computer and load onto my Touch. It's worked like a charm so far. In addition to having presets for easy export to various mediums:

Uploaded with Skitch!

HandBrake allows you to choose how large you'd like the resultant file to be or choose the degree of quality. This is a huge boon for a number of reasons:

1- It allows you to create files that can be easily burned onto a CD.
2- Because the iPod Touch's screen is small, you don't need DVD quality to enjoy a movie... so you can decrease the file size accordingly.
3- Alternately if you're watching anything by Peter Jackson or If you have an iPod to TV adapter, you can choose much higher video quality for when you plan to view it on a larger screen.

Number two is a big one for me because I have the 8 gig version and want to conserve space. I also enjoy watching documentaries which generally don't rely upon stunning visual effects. I'm still experimenting with how low of video quality I can choose before it becomes unwatchable.

Any suggestions on applications or modifications for my new toy?

Study on Partiality of Political Coverage

From TalkLeft

I was surprised to read the results of this study:

Uploaded with Skitch!

Uploaded with Skitch!

First off, I think that it's only to be expected that Hillary is the focus of much of the political punditry. She has been campaigning as the political frontrunner for months and continues to do so in spite of her statistically tenuous claim to that distinction.

I was also struck by the lack of explanation into the methodology of the study. What is "scientific content analysis" and how can it determine what constitutes positive and negative coverage? If a member of the media says "critics believe ____" in some cases, that person is merely couching their own views in the amorphous third party of "critics" or the even more ephemeral, "some people." In other cases, the person is using the construct of "critics" or "some people" to raise a legitimate point and to attempt to further explore or explain that candidates point of view.

How does the scientific analysis determine which is which?

Running Strong

Although I still have a stress fracture in my right foot that is preventing me from running, it does not hinder in the least my consumption of running-related media. I found this article on LetsRun and thought it was a good reminder of how - health benefits of actual exercise aside - marathons actually prevent deaths.

God Save the Queen!

The English Monarch's annual Christmas Day message was broadcast live this year - as usual - but was also subsequently posted to YouTube by the royal administration a short time later.

At the time of this posting, the number of people who viewed the speech on YouTube (900,000) was almost thrice that of the number of people who tuned in to watch it live.

Other governments should embrace the use of YouTube for disseminating their messages in an easily accessible, reviewable medium.

For more information, click here and/or here.

Quick Follow Up Re: Doping

This blog really started to get whatever traction it currently has when I wrote about my displeasure with a New York Times article whose presentation - not content, mind you - compared Bannister's alleged use of performance enhancing drugs with that of Marion Jones.

I just wanted to note that the recent press regarding Marion Jones' malfeasances is making those comparisons - however diluted by caveat - horribly inappropriate.

I'll say it again: Marion Jones is a disgrace to her sport and country while Sir Roger is exactly the opposite.

I did enjoy this somewhat dated piece in the New York Times about Dr. Bannister's accomplishment.

Wii Can Do It!

So, as I'm inclined to do pretty much every day, I was reading Techmeme a few days ago. I came across this article about the "physical benefits" of playing video games on the Wii system as opposed to on a generically controlled console.

The following statistics were among the only sited by this article:

Project Gotham Racing 3: 125.5 kJ/kg/min
Wii Sports bowling: 190.6 kJ/kg/min
Wii Sports boxing: 198.1 kJ/kg/min
Wii Sports tennis: 202.5 kJ/kg/mi

The study concluded thusly that Wii gaming: "was not of high enough intensity to contribute towards the recommended daily amount of exercise in children... In a typical week, active gaming rather than passive gaming would increase total energy expenditure by less than 2 percent."

I find it very hard to take seriously the results of a study that basis its conclusion on data that suggests that a person playing Wii Sports tennis expends more energy than a person playing Wii Sports boxing.

(For the sake of journalistic impartiality, these videos both were among the top 10 videos found with a YouTube search of "Wii Tennis" and "Wii Bowling," respectively. I also opted to use amateur footage because I thought it would necessarily be less contrived than professional footage made to illustrate how easy the Wii is to use.

I have a Wii. I've played both and it's not even close. To quote Jules (Samuel L Jackson) from Pulp Fiction, "it ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport..."

Well, obviously it's not the same sport. At the end of a typical Wii boxing game I am generally pretty darned tuckered out - and I consider myself to be in better shape than the general population. Wii Tennis, on the other hand, simply involves a flick of the wrist. I can't imagine that minute for minute, the amount of energy expended while playing Wii Tennis even begins to approach that used for Wii Boxing. In short, Wii Tennis requires far less effort than Wii Boxing.

Based on that alone, I question the validity of the study. But even aside from that, even if playing the Wii is only - according to the hard scientific data - slightly better for ones' health than another gaming system, it's still better.

Furthermore, there's the chance that playing a Wii Sport may encourage someone to go outside and play its real counterpart. Before you scoff at this justification, at least stop and think about the fact that emulation is at least an option with Wii Sports. It's not like someone can decide to go out and play Halo in real life.

And Wii gains even more props for actually inquiring whether the gamer would like to take a break to go outside and play. No other system encourages you to do something other than play it.

So while playing Wii is certainly not as healthy as many activities, as far as video games go, it's close to the top.

Though RockBand gives you a pretty sweet workout as well... groupies too...