Plasma vs LCD? Honestly, it is a question I didn’t ask myself until I had a brand new Samsung sitting in my lounge room.

So like everyone else at the moment, I decided that pre-olympics was going to my time to upgrade from my dodgy 68cm Konka to a nice big tv.I have to admit that I have driven my wife crazy, dragging her through every TV store looking at sets we could never afford - pointing out "If we had the money that is the set I would get…". Anyway the stars aligned at at the end of June and we had a proportionate sum of money that would  put me in the market for the TV

My father had mistakenly purchased a Panasonic 1080p plasma late last year. We had walked into Harvey Norman - saw the plethora ofTV’s on display and immediately went to the 50" PZ series. It had the most natural looking picture of all the sets and almost immediately the set was bought. It was only when we got it home that we discovered that it was a plasma. It turned out to be a great purchase. We have watched everything fromDVD’s, free-to-air and crappy Foxtel on the set and it has done a superb job all round.

So as I started shopping, I immediately disregarded the plasma ( for no reason). I suppose I believed more what I read about the ‘better and newer’ technology of the LCD rather than the experience of the plasma. I researched, and found a commensurateSamsung A650 for a good price. I parted with my cash, got it home unboxed it and set it up. It looked beautiful in my lounge room. However after playing and tweaking I decided that it was the TV for me. Some hours into my setup one thing had become very apparent- the LCD simply didn’t handle the many different quality of signals I was throwing at it. DVD playback looked okay,FTA HD looked stunning and Foxtel looked like YouTube . I found myself having to customise the picture settings of every input (and sometimes every channel - sport/lifestyle/drama) just to get a smooth viewing experience.

So in light of my mistake I took it back to place of purchase (thank you Lord for change of mind policies) and exchanged it for a  1080p 46" Panasonic (Th46pz800a ). I had been eyeing off the set when putting down the cash for the Samsung.  The plasma has been installed for a week and is working a treat, just as I expected it to.
 
Their are tons of good sites out there explaining the differences in the technology of the two flat panels (LCD/Plasma). Simply put - plasma uses indivdual cells which are filled with gases that are stimulated into colour as different currents are applied - so colour is made by the turning on and adding of light. You can see these when you get up close to a plasma. LCD on the other hand have a much tighter ‘dot’ or pixel. An LCD is made up of a film/weave of liquid crystals sandwiched with a backlight that change colour when the current is passed through them. However they aren’t very bright - hence the backlight is needed and shines behind liquid crystals to illuminate the colour. This is what enables LCD’s to appear brighter and more colourful in well lit conditions - however it also means that whenever there is black - light still emits -  coming from the backlight.

I watch movies and sport - and it is generally accepted that plasmas do better with these sources than LCD’s because of the responsiveness of the plasma dot. For me it is all about clarity and sharpness. My educational background is in graphics and photography. One of my trully obsessive compulsions is for sharp images. In photography sharpness is delivered through a few mechanisms, but histoically that has largerly been dominated by contrasty grain. The grainier a picture appears, the sharper to the eye it is. Obviously there is a point where the grain takes away from the picture - but one of the tricks employed by photomedia peeps to sharpen up images ( in the darkroom before photoshop sharpening filters) was to increase grain. Plasma’s are noticably more grainy that the smooth tones of an LCD - but that is where their inherant clarity is discerned. That is not to say that an LCD can’t be sharp - but in theprocess that an plasma behaves, it will almost always render a source to appear sharper than an LCD.

From what I have read I think the next true step of flat panel TV will be LaserTV and OLED - which seem to overcome current LCD and Plasma shortcomings. Next major decision is Blueray/PVR device - at this stage all signs point to PS3…

I don’t usually drop Rails programming bits here, but when quickly googling I couldn’t find what I was after, so figured it’s worth dropping in here:

Back in April ‘07, Ryan Bates covered how to do this with checkboxes… but I wanted to be able to do it in a list (multiple-entry select) box.

We needed to do the following:

• Allow a user to specify multiple values from a list box
• Allow selection of none
• Control the size of the list box - in this case, to 6 entries

In the view:

<%= f.collection_select :category_ids, Category.by_name, :id, :name, {:selected => @item.category_ids}, {:include_blank => true, :multiple => :true, :name => 'item[category_ids][]', :size => 6} %>

NB. You’ll notice I’m using a Rails 2.1 named_scope "by_name"… which isn’t necessary but ensures I’m working with a sorted list of values in the list box.

In the controller

(we need to do this as a user de-selecting all entries will result in the form sending through an empty array… hence Rails will ignore it and leave it unchanged.

def update
  params[:item][:category_ids] ||= []
  @item = Item.find(params[:id]
...#as per the rest of your Update action

Hope this helps you out…

I remember hearing the announcement that the next James Bond would be Daniel Craig. My immediate thoughts were those trying to access where I had seen him before. I remembered some poorly written role he had in Tomb Raider, and a really great role he had in Layercake.  Anyway I instantly dismissed him - I was used to the wry Bond’s of Connery, Moore and Brosnan and Craig didn’t seem to fit this.

Fast forward 12 months sitting in the cinema as the 30 minutes of trailers and ads rolled before the main feature. I thought that the past Bond films hadn’t been the strongest moments of the series. Since the reboot of the franchise with Goldeneye, each film has gotten more fantastical - which ultimately has made the movies more silly than compelling.

The lights dimmed and the noirish black and white opening began. I was intrigued as the gritty realism wasn’t what I was expecting. It seemed more akin to the intense pacy thriller of The Bourne Identity. Cut to office shot as Bond confronts said badguy traitor, cut back to bathroom (and grittiness), cut to famous barrel shot and boom blood flows as the strings and guitars rumble up as Chris Cornell begins You know my name  and I am already excited.

The familiar opening Bond seqeunce isn’t forthcoming… no Maurice Binder like silhouetted, naked females with silhouetted, firing guns. Daniel Kleinman (title designer for the past 5 Bond films including this movie) takes the path less followed and goes for a much more abstract approach - playing on the aesthetic of casinos, cards and poker while using more subtle allusions to mathematics and chance (Mandelbrot), violence/death (the shooting and blood factor) and love and the loss of it (hearts, bloody veins). Kleinman was inspired by the original cover of  Ian Flemings book - and used those visual cues to guide the 2006 movie.

I think the success of this sequence lies in the perfect choreography of the graphics with Cornell’s ripper track. The song is epic, intense, and a good character insight into Bond. The graphics are strong, bold, playful and beautiful without feeling trite, forced nor over stylised (where most previous Bond graphics have strayed).  The use of the simple Century Gothic over the geometric patterns and background is also really strong.

There is an interview with Daniel Kleinman about this approach here @ commanderbond.net

I have to honestly say that I didn’t watch Stranger than Fiction because I wanted to. It was one of those cases of it appearing in a pile of DVD’s at my place (thanks dad) - and nothing to watch one summers night. The movie is terrific - it looks like a romantic comedy but doesn’t follow any of the conventions that one has to endure with the typical romcom. Will Ferrell is great in an un-Ferrell like performance.

Anyway the opening and closing titles are what interests me. I loved the integration of plain typefaces and symbols with the movements of the film. It reminds me of the IKEA sequence in Fight Club - but adds a kinetic element that both meshes and mimics onscreen action.

If  you break the whole sequence down - it is not just cool - it serves as a totally considered piece of storytelling - the OCD world of Harold and how Harold visually breaks the world down.

From the sparse , desaturated apartment - the watch (as the central plot device) flickers to life with the funky alarm animation (I wondered if such a watch existed - a search on Amazon provided successful - but alas no funky blue animations on the real thing).

The infographics unfold for the audience to see as Harold brushes his teeth while the narration talks about his love of numbers and order- the graphics then unfold  form like for Harold to mentally check off.

These graphics reveal the thought processes of a character who doesn’t say a lot in his dialogue (at least initially). The clicking of the tie graphics and shuffling as he moves through the different steps is offset by the blurred text with delicate drop shadow (giving both weight, distance and focus) informs the character of Harold.

The counting of the dots on his tie is so subtle and looks so real that you could spike yourself on it.

The beauty of the sequence is that its not covered with the graphics - it leaves shots and spaces for nothing. The mix of design styles ( maps while crossing the street, forms and geometrics as he wanders into the office and then the organic handwritten ‘thoughts’ as he is computing figures together) is neither distracting nor abrupt but adds in informing the story of Harold without actually ‘telling’ you.

The cubicle office environment boxes Harold in just like the forms and table graphics (again mimicking the cubicles) that float around him.

The whole sequence speaks to measurement in both a numerical manner (figures and numbers), spatial manner (the drawing of vectors and shapes) and objectually (1 bowl, 1 spoon, 2 forks 3 cups). This idea of measurement and thus accountability is central to the films narrative. I like the idea of exploring a character by interpreting visually the picture inside said characters head.

There is a great docu on this sequence here @ artofthetitle.com

The team @ mk12, Jed Carter, Gunner Hansen, Kevin Tod Haug Ben Kadtz are responsible for this tremendous piece of work. The end titles are worth looking at too!

 

Walked to the end of the street this morning to get the Saturday paper… and couldn’t help but stop by the Deck cafe at the Surf Rock Hotel for Eggs Benedict and a GREAT coffee.

 

People travel halfway round the world for settings like this… yet I take it for granted every day. This morning was a great opportunity to pause and be thankful. It is SO great living in Sydney!

 

(Photo credit: http://www.surfrockhotel.com.au/PhotoGallery/photosatthesurfrock.aspx)

I’m hoping soon to start using Passenger (mod_rails) for Apache at work for Rails apps I’m building there - it’s just SO much easier than the screwing around that’s usually involved in deploying Rails apps.

Thanks to the awesome new weekly "This week in Rails" post by Antonio Cangiano at Riding Rails, I’m also going to check out apache-upload-progress for doing upload progress bars… sensational for the learning media server app I’m constructing!

We’ve been using Basecamp for a while, and it seems Dann has been using Backpack also for his work at SPGS. This month I’ve switched to using Backpack as the centre of my world, adopting the basic strategies from David Allen’s Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity (sold in Australia as "How to Get Things Done"). So far (a week or so down the track) it’s working fantastically well and a great use of US$7 a month. Here’s hoping that’ll continue!

An interesting side-note: 37signals have just recently launched an affiliate/referral program. Dann and I have encouraged numerous users to use their products - perhaps ideal members of the program… but alas, membership in the program is only possible if you live in the US… weird!

Caught a couple of videos this week that have encouraged me to think further about the challenges facing schools… and the opportunities afforded by the Software as a Service (SaaS) idea (see also my earlier reflections on Google apps for education).

The first is a terrible production… but the guy interviewed has some cool stuff to say about web-based Office computing - like 20K-person companies moving away from desktop + local network-based software like MS Office, Exchange, etc towards systems hosted on "the cloud". It’s REALLY interesting… and is the sort of thing I’d love to see us innovating with
http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/workfast-interview-mr-office-20

In it they talk about Salesforce.com. At the US Moodle conference, the guys from Moodlerooms are working on integrations between the two - with a view to supporting smaller universities hosting their entire financial and student management systems online.

The (much better made) second vid is an interview with Salesforce.com’s CEO (former Oracle executive, Marc Benioff) - these guys are serious - US$1 billion of revenue and 50% growth last quarter, and they’ve got some powerful ideas about taking on the established model.
http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/salesforcecom-become-platform-juggernaut-says-ceo


This stuff has more exciting possibilities to transform schools management & admin than anything I’ve seen.

One wonders who’ll be the first to take advantage of the present gaping hole in this market…