Amazon Fire

Overall, I like what I see in this tablet. It has a lot of great features, I think Amazon silk may be a breakthrough in Android browsers. The fact that it’s $50 less than my Nook Color makes me not too guilty if I pick one up myself and give the nook color away (honestly I don’t know what Barnes and Noble’s is going to do now, they better pull a rabbit out of their hats to even compete with what Amazon is offering now). I like the fact that Amazon has a tablet because you can buy the device directly from Amazon, and you don’t have to go through a mobile company like AT&T and have to sign onto a wireless plan in order to get the unit subsidized, which would still be more expensive than the Kindle Fire.

The thing I always hated about the iPad was that it was too damn expensive. You have to understand that my expensive tolerance is fairly low (Over $300 is expensive for me, and I think for a growing swath of people in this country). But I think of Moore’s law like I think of similar concepts, like gravity, that technology will get cheaper and get into the hands of more people. Digital divide wise the more information technology is in the hands of more people, the better a society is, I firmly believe that. Amazon just opened the door for consumers of lesser means to have access to as much digital content as iPad users, and I think the Amazon Prime’s $80 a year is probably the cheapest all-you-can-eat plan out there ( Netflix average out to $95 a year, Hulu Plus around $115 a year, not much more but still more). And I’m sure it will be rootable so people who know what to do can put a modded android build on it, similar to what I did for my Nook Color.

Of course the dream, the true dream, is to get a $200 general purpose tablet of decent quality. The Kindle fire is not general purpose, it’s a multipurpose tablet focused, like a laser beam, on buying and consuming content from Amazon. It has apps, but not as much as the more open Android app store. Even rooted with a more general purpose android build on it, the hardware has is no gps, no bluetooth, no HDMI out. These types of features are more known to the now we can definitely say “high-end” android based tablets like the Motorola Xoom and the Galaxy Tab.  I want those features AND I want all the content options that Amazon Kindle Fire has. I just hope that at least other tablet manufactures take this in consideration and just start dropping their prices.

The Persistent Stream

Today, Wired posted an story about AT&T proposing a general data cap on thier DSL and UVerse Fiber networks, 150 GB a month for DSL and 250 GB a month for Uverse.

Now I can go on and on about how once again a telecommunications company is diluting services in the name of preventing network congestion, but only seem that it’s just to line their pockets. But I’m not, there will be plenty of consumer advocates and information activists that will be doing that Rather, I would like to argue the case that any cap can’t be justified, even with a high threshold.

Most domestic network users, when seeing the 150 and especially 250 GB data cap will say, “That’s a ridiculously high cap. Even at my heaviest internet use I would never surpass that in a month.”  And that may be true, at least today. But we are in the middle of a transition in which the bulk of both computing and media is being done through the network.

Think about what you do on the daily basis with a connected device. You may be watching HD video via Hulu or Netflix, talking to people on skype, or playing a multi-player game online via Xbox, Wii, or PS3. Even doing work can involve a great deal of network access. E-mail, writing up paperwork or working on various traditional desktop computer work can be doing entirely online at this point more and less, and the convenience of these web apps are growing. This type of internet access, one in which every aspect of computing is done with some amount of network access  is what I called “Persistent Streaming”.

The persistent stream is John Gage’s term “the network is the computer” finally taking shape in our daily lives. None of us can argue that the majority of the time we spend in front of a screen isn’t dedicated to sending and receiving bits to and from the ether. Network access has become so intertwined in the way software operates that it becomes invisible to us. Not only that, the network has ceased to be just a means in which data transferred to be processed on home desktops, but rather its being processed remotely and presented to us via  messages or fully interactive interfaces.

And similar to the way computer power can be quantified via CPU clock speed, the power of the persistent stream is directly contributed to the amount of bandwidth a connection has. The quality of a video stream, a VOIP call, connecting to some cloud based application, all of these services improve when done over a fast connection. And like desktop applications evolving to in a matter to require more cpu processing power over time, so will network based applications and services.

And that’s my point. An ISP now saying to you that you can only have 150 GB/Month now is like Intel in 1998 telling you that you were only need a 450 Mhz CPU to do what you need to do, with software being written three years that require over 1 Ghz of processing power in order to function. Eventually data and services on the network will require more bandwidth and that huge 150 GB a month will seem quite quaint in a couple of years. Unfortunately, unlike the PC hardware industry there is no competitive insentient  for ISPs like AT&T to create faster network infrastructure to keep in pace with evolving use of the network. Just the opposite in fact, ISPs are trying to tell it’s users that their use of the persistent stream is something that needs to be controlled, eliminating unlimited accesses and clocking it as some twisted conservation effort. But in fact, increasing bandwidth use is just another facet of Moore’s law playing it’s geometric course.

Finding out about Egypt

Like many Americans, up until this point Egypt was a country on the peripheral of my imagination. It was a country in which I remember in adventure films. Indiana Jones, The Mummy. Camels, sand and the pyramids. That’s it. Even in this post-9/11 age, Egypt was in the background. It was always portrait in the media as “the stable state”, “the Peace Holder” more because its peace treaty and diplomatic relations with Irael.

In fact any real deep knowledge I have at all about Egypt was an Audiobook I purchased online entitled Dreams and Shadows : The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright. In Dreams and Shadows Write gives a comprehensive and dense overview of every country in the middle east. It was an exciting read listen. What I remember about Egypt was that it was the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the 30 year long state of “Emergency Law”. Once again a quick look into Wikipedia gave me a good recap on Egypt and Emergency Law.

Egyptians have been living under an Emergency Law (Law No. 162 of 1958) since 1967, except for an 18-month break in 1980. The emergency was imposed during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and reimposed following the assassination of President Anwar Sadat.

• Emergency Law in Egypt

I also looked into what happened in Tunisia, which pretty much was the inspiration for the Egyptian mass protests. I went back to reliable Wikipedia for that info (2010-2011 Tunisia uprising). Since what going on now in Egypt is going on now (at least at the time of this posting), there is alot, A LOT of real-time information out there, particularly on social networks. The mass media in this country latched on to the successful use of twitter and facebook in organizing the uprising, and this is true. However, as an outside observer, you’ll be accessing this information as a complete consumer, and there is a river of updates coming out, especially on twitter. Observing the hashtag #Egypt or #jan25 is pretty much is useless in realtime. When I searched for #Egypt on my Tweetdeck chrome webapp, it crashed my browser tab. I had to move to the desktop version in order too handle the load. Even with that it’s a stream of updates, like 10 a second. Now I’m a fast reader, but not that fast. If you intend on following the #Egypt hastag I suggess finding a client that can handle the load, particular a desktop based client. I suggest however to stick to single twitter sources for these updates, or lists.

When it comes to news coverage, I can’t stress this enough, Al Jazeera English! I’ve been having the stream on for days (and although I join Jeff Jarvis in his call for cable companies to add the Al Jazeera English channel, I’m fine with just watching it online, I hate cable). Although I am a progressive I don’t think Al Jazeera is a progressive station, or a station trying push an Islamic agenda as some folks on the right think they do. It reminds me more of like a BBC, but with a more international scope. They are like the only agencies that have consistently had people on the ground in Egypt during all this, US outlets have been using Al Jezeera’s footage as a base of their own coverage. The channel is smart, modern, and strangely tempered. I guess I’m just used to hearing talking heads and anchors scream at me on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. I remember an segment on NPR’s On the Media about the start of the English Al Jazeera channel.

As I lay sick on my couch (bit of a head cold), writing this it is midmorning in Cairo. I watching the Al Jazeera stream and reading the rapid popups of twitter posts ending with #Egypt and #Jan25. I think personally what captivates me about this drama is that I want people to feel and live a life with justice in it. I suppose that hope is embedded in my DNA. As an American, I think the story of people sticking up for themselves after a long period of repression is a universal theme in each of us.

Introducing “Realer than Real”, my on going series on Hyper-realism

Earlier today, I was listening to Howard Stern on Sirius/XM radio. A typical occurrence of the show is having adult film stars come in for a little chat with Howard, Robin and the usual crew. Today’s show was no exception, but the conversation between Stern and the porn stars made me pause from my work and listen. Here is a summary of what I heard.

Howard mentioned the guests they had coming up today and said that he’s having some porn girls in since so many people like that on the show. Howard said porn is ruining the country though. He said the girls are so vocal in the videos and then when you have sex yourself you feel you’re missing something. Howard said he’s had sex with several normal women who make you feel unloved. He said he’d give Robin an example…

… Howard said he was listening to the clips of the girls that are coming in today and they sound so sexy. He wants that in his personal life but he know he won’t have that. He played a clip of one of the girls getting banged and she’s moaning and making all kinds of noise as the guy is banging her. Howard said no regular woman sounds like that. Robin said women don’t want to hear that kind of stuff in a movie. Howard said that’s what men want. He said he’s been watching porn for years and this stuff is ruining lives. He said men expect this kind of thing during sex.

- Source: MarksFrigging.com (http://www.marksfriggin.com/news.htm, Obtained online 7/14/10)

What does this mean? Howard, with or without knowing it (probably the latter, the man is extremely intelligent, despite what my friends say), is referring to pornography, a manufactured product, being so real and stylistic that it can alter or even replace the sexual experience of it’s observer. This phenomenon is known as hyper-reallism , and it permeates throughout the modern world, in particularly in media, art and architecture .

What is hyper-realism?

There are allot of definitions of hyper-realism, the two I like are the standard dictionary entry, and the very detailed  Wikipedia entry. Here is the dictionary definition:

An artistic style characterized by highly realistic graphic representation.

Hyper-realism is a concept you hear in artists and philosophical circles, but it’s not something that is a part of the lexicon on most people. I find this interesting, considering how much hyper-realism is a part of modern life. You experience it when going to Las Vegas, when seeing a 3D movie like “Avatar”, when playing games like “Halo” or “Second Life”. And with the proliferation of new and more vivid media technologies (Virtual Reality, High Definition video, etc), we, in my opinion, are moving towards a world in which the amount to time we spend observing hyper-reality would be equal if not more than the time we sense and observe “standard” reality. That leaves to all sorts of questions. What will that do to us as a society and a species? What will happen to the real reality that we are more and more distancing ourself from? Or even, is hyper-reality just an offshoot of standard reality, can hyper-reality even exist without standard reality to base itself on?

With that said, I’m going to start an ongoing series of blog, facebook and twitter postings on the subject. I have to disclose that I am not at all an expert on the subject matter, I’m just interested in it. Allot of the posting will be links to articles and books that discuss the topic in more detail that I could ever. However, I will be peppering much of this information with my own tidbits on the subject. I would rather have a conversation with like-minded people via various social networks I’m on and on this blog, so please join in with comments on this blog, retweets, direct messages, facebook wall posts, etc. This will probably be the only “formal” post on the subject as well, my future posts will be  more casual.

Finally, as for Stern’s conversation with the adult film stars, he asked them directly if how they act during the filming is actually how they have sex in real life. The two starlets admitted that although there are aspects of the performances are how they react to sex, they are definitely playing up for the camera and that their real sex lives are surprisingly tame. But they offered that they like the tame sex they have, saying “a lot of the stuff we do during filming we really don’t like”.

I look forward to exploring this topic and discussing it with people F2F and online. Look out to “RTR” tag in my various posts and tweets, which will identify that it is part of this series.

What if “Akira” was created by Americans

Ok, so I saw this post on Japan Probe and I thought it was hilliarious. It’s a parody of the upcoming american adaption of the classic masterpiece “Akira”. Initially, I was going to post this up on Facebook, but after watching the video and thinking about it, I decided that here is a millisecond of content in it that may offend some people so I decided to post it here with proper context.

This is a parody of  American teen films, but there is a slight moment when a black character in the video is shown. Although only a split second, the character is visually looks like the classic “Sambo” depiction of African Americans with a modern spin to it, along with the reference by one of the characters in the video as a “gang member”.

Obviously I noticed it and was concerned enough to post it on my personal blog instead so I can write this mini-disclaimer. However, I still posted the video, why?

1. The video is a parody of American teen films, which most are dominated by white characters and when they do have black characters they are depicted in a ghettoized gang context. I’m assuming that this is what the creators of this video was trying to accomplish.
2. I HATE, HATE, HATE the idea of an American live action version of  ”Akira”. Are you fucking kidding me?!? No way will this film be good, the very fact that it will not take place in Japan, in Neo-tokyo, is bad enough. I don’t care if they got the Hughes brothers to produce and direct it, it WILL BE TERRIBLE

Anyway, like I said usually I would just post in on Facebook and not give a fuck, but I don’t want friends and fam to see it and think immediately that I hating on my own. With that said, enjoy…

SIFF Review : Devil’s Town

Now that I’ve seen the film, I can say that it wasn’t what I expected. From the trailer I saw, I was expecting a european sex comedy where the characters got into wacky situations. But in truth, the movie is about the lives, passions, and tragedies of the citizens of post-war serbia.

I liked the length of the film (approx 80 minutes), it kept me intereted and the pacing was fast enough for me not to get impatient (something that happens to me a lot when watching a non asian foreign film).

And although the film was serving plenty of serbian skin, it was not done for the sake of just showing skin, but as a product of love and lust being a foundation of the movie’s plot. Indeed, there are various scenes in which I regret, along with the characters, the sexual behavior they just participated in.

The timing in the film is what really stood out. The way the director used the camera to introduce the relation of principle characters was well executed.

On a final note, I know little of Serbian outside of what I read in wikipedia and from pbs (which it more than most Americans I’m sure). One aspect of Serbia that the movie pointed out is that her people are obessed with tennis. It has to be the national past time there. That type of shit interest me, you know. It’s the little things, the little tints of culture that’s so close to my own, but not. Anyway, I gave it a 3 on my judging card.

I may skip the movie I had planned tommarrow, but I’m definitely going all out this weekend, especially if I can get a hold of a pass.

I Love SIFF, come share the experience with me.

One of the best things about living in Seattle is attending the yearly Seattle International Film Festival. This year, I’m making a real effort to see as many films as my schedule will allow. Of course, attending the festival is more enjoying when you go with friends and fellow film enthusiasts. With that said, I’m sharing my SIFF schedule with the world. I’m no Roger Ebert, but I’ve carefully looked at every film and chose those that interested me.  I think the selection is pretty diverse, with a good mix of comedies, dramas, documentaries and action.

It will be impossible for me to see every film on this schedule, but if I can see at least half of the films on this schedule, I’ll be happy. I’ll twitter what films I’ll be going to a couple hours before the showing, and a little review via twitter afterward, or a more extensive review on woodyblog if it’s was worth more pondering. Anyway, if you want to join me for a film viewing or your going to be at the same film as me already (@kbalatero), just send me a mention/message on twitter or facebook. I’ll see you around!

Link : SIFF Schedule

FYI : I will be attending the 7:00 PM viewing of “Devil’s Town” at the Harvard Exit tonight.

My New Years Resolution…

I decided for my News Years resolution to start blogging again. It’s always been an a on-again, off-again affair with me and blogging, dispite the fact that I’m surrounded by bloggers in both my professional and private life. Honestly, I tend to be profondly dissapointed in what I write, perhaps my ego expects me to drop something great every time I put fingers to keyboard. 

I mean, it’s not like I haven’t being feeding thoughts into the machine, that’s what Twitter is for. But for the past months, I’ve been streaming little micro-posts and linking like a maniac, but nothing at length. But there is still an long standing urge in me to write something and put it out in the world, so for 2009, I’m going to press myself to write and write until something great comes out of it. And if it doesn’t, I’m fine with that, as long as I keep at it, something will take shape, like a muscle getting regular exercise.

Live from a bar!

Just testing out the mobile capabilities of WP on my HTC Wizard/T-mobile Dash phone. Not bad. At Smith’s on 15th. It’s funny how many staffers from Linda’s worj here now, and how many patrons from Linda’s are here as well. A hyper-local migration perhaps.

Fool Tagging!

If your like me, you probably spend a quarter of you day scanning rss feeds, staring, tagging, emailing interesting stories. Most of your subscriptions will be from blogs like Engadget, Huffington Post, Gristmill (heh), where there aways interesting stories, and how’s editorial staff will more the likely celebrate the 1st of April by pulling a fast one on us, creating a fictional story with the hopes of it spreading throughout the media sphere until the drop the proverbial “April Fools!” line on their readers. Some people get irate by this, me, I love figuring out what stories are real and what stories are completely bullshit.

With that in mind, editors and bloggers aren’t the only ones that can have fun tomorrow, you the rss junky can get on the festivities as well by participating in a little game I call Fool Tagging . The game is simple: read your subscriptions on April 1st the way you usually do, but this time try to figure out which stories are real or which stories you thing are April Fools jokes, and using your reader (i.e., Google Reader, bloglines) or you bookmarking service (i.e., del.icio.us) tag these stories “fool”. There are two conditions of this that have to be in place however.

1. You have to have your fool list of stories public, either using a public/share output option in your favorite service or creating a simple web-page list of the stories.
2. You can only add stories between 12 AM and 9 PM on April 1st. Tagging anytime afterward wouldn’t be fun because by that time the world have investigated and figured out the fakes.
3. If you work for a media shop, you can’t include links from your site (for example, I can not post fool links from Grist or Gristmill). This rule is obvious, working there you probably know what stories would be fake (if they are fake) and not only will you spoil the story for the readers, your colleagues will probably stamp you as a rat and a spoiler until next April, and that would suck.

I’ll be tagging my list on Google Reader and sharing it at http://tinyurl.com/yrhph8 . People who want to join in on the fun are more than welcome to post links to thier lists in comments section (no, comment bots plz). I look forward to seeing what stores people accuse of being false tomorrow. Happy hunting!