"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Marvel Announces Phase 3 Movie Slate and Avengers 2 Clip

In advance of the teaser scene from Avengers: Age of Ultron (clip below), Marvel announced their phase 3 slate of 9 movies. To no surprise it remains ambitious and tied together by Avengers 3 and 4 but includes a bunch of characters that the average non-comic book fan may not have heard of. The movies are:

2016
Captain America: Civil War (5/6)
Doctor Strange (11/4)

2017

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Avengers: Age of Ultron Teaser Trailer

In what was intended to be a boost to the ratings of Agents of SHIELD was foiled when Hydra leaked an early crappy copy of the teaser Wednesday night. Said video spread across the internet like wild fire forcing Marvel to release the below HD version that does a good job of revealing nothing while looking exciting.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Apple Updates iPad Line-Up

As expected Apple has announced its updated line of iPads with the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3. Like the iPhone, they are really just a marginal update for those that have the previous generation of each device. The Air 2 just have a slightly faster chip and Touch ID while the iPad Mini 3 is really the Mini 2 with Touch ID added (for $100 more). In addition they officially released the next OS X update called Yosemite, announced that Apple Pay begins next Monday, the iOS 8.1 update features and showed up their refreshed Mac Mini and iMac. For anyone rocking an iPad that can already handle iOS8, the news is meaningless. Unless you are a hard core gamer, the slight boost in chip power is irrelevant. You are not going to notice the different in speed. Its the equivalent of buying a porsche to sit in traffic all day while living in a city full of speed traps. Technically the car can go fast but when will you actually use all that expensive power?

Ironically, the real tech news comes from Apple's decision to start moving away from the SIM card with their reprogrammable SIM card called "Apple SIM" that can be used from carrier to carrier simply by using software instead of swapping SIM cards. Basically it would give consumers greater latitude to go "month-to-month" with which ever carrier they choose for that month. The carriers still hold a lot of the power so classic SIM card tray still exists but this is the first of probably a bunch of smaller moves to hopefully eventually retire this tired 20 year old "technology" that really exists to give carriers the power as it acts as a form of DRM protection on their mobile hardware while providing no real benefit to consumers. Now to the announcement highlights.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Sound Advice on Ebola in US from Fox News!?!

Unless you have lived in a cave (driven there by the news on Ebola) then you are away that the United States is currently host to all of two people that have contracted the virus from a third person that came into the States with it (and sadly since died). If you watch the news though, they seem to have one goal - to terrify you into thinking at any moment you or a loved one will die from Ebola. Cause 3 total equates to all 300 million being in danger. Even though we are going on a month now and that total is still just 3. Cause that is how fast moving, dangerous to all, OMG we could die any moment, epidemics work. So here is what I recommend - listen to the clip below from Fox News. Yeah I can't believe it either.

Shepard Smith must be getting torn a new one by upper management (or they ordered it now that their stock portfolios are getting hit) for saying out loud what the press already knows but doesn't want the public to figure out - that there is no danger from Ebola. As he points out, you have a better chance of dieing from the flu then from Ebola. Currently you have a better chance of winning the lottery then you have of getting Ebola. There is nothing to be afraid of.

Anyone currently trying to scare you is the enemy of truth and good. Trying to score points, be it ratings, attention or votes, by scaring people needlessly is just a form of evil. And when its a politician, who has easy access to experts and they in turn also try to magnify that fear, well if there isn't a special place in hell for them then there ought to be. There is nothing to be afraid of. If going be in fear of something, at least next time be informed enough to know if its justified. Also remember, the news no longer exists to inform you. That is counter to their money making through entertainment mandate. You have the internet, start using it to gain knowledge instead of using the lazy route of listening to people who benefit more from scaring you than informing you.