Screenshots from the DVD version of The Fellowship of the Ring at 480p compared to a 1080i HDTV broadcast of the same film show a staggering and dramatic difference.
Mousing over any of the photos on that page will show you the HD feed. Clicking any of them will show you the full-size blowups. Aragorn’s beard in the HD version of shot 11 is so crisp and clear that it pretty much looks like a photograph.
People are dying all over the place today!
Darren McGavin died too. He played Billy Madison’s dad in Billy Madison and Frank Black’s dad on Millennium.
It’s a sad day in Mayberry. Don Knotts dies at 81.
For a long time now the LitterMaid has been a cat owner’s only option for automatic litter box cleaning. Unfortunately it’s a piece of crap.
It’s got this one big scooper that slides across the box and scoops any solid matter into a sealed storage container. The problem is that the motor is barely strong enough to pull the scoop all the way across, and the scoop itself usually gets gunked up with poo and pee and needs to be cleaned by hand every so often.
Incompetence breeds competition, and soon the CatGenie will see the light of day. Details are sparse, however it somehow hooks up to your toilet in two locations – one to provide it with water and another to flush the poop into your toilet. It scoops the poop similar to the LitterMaid, but it then uses water to somehow wash the scoop and its own special washable, reusable litter.
God only knows if it’ll work or not, but if you sign up to get on their waiting list (no obligation to buy) before Tuesday, you’ll have the option of buying one for $200 – they’ll retail for $300.
I added the exclamation points, but it’s still a real headline.
I have a bone to pick with Sucker Punch Productions.
I just finished Sly Cooper 3 tonight.
No game should ever let you finish it when the game’s progress bar is at 52%. That’s just a basic rule that’s been around since…well, forever. It seems like common sense, you know?
Here I was thinking I had hours and hours more playtime ahead of me – twice as much game as I had already played – and boom! End of game.
Turns out the remaining 48% are these stupid optional time trials that force you to replay parts of the game over and over. Wow, I really can’t wait to replay the exact same game that I just spent a month to finish a second time just to get 100% and unlock some lame-ass movie. Thanks, Sucker Punch!
At least when other games pull this crapola they let you finish above a more reasonable number, like 90%. Castlevania even let you explore the unlockables after you finished the game and extended the counter to something crazy high like 180%. Remember that?
What is wrong with people?
Aside from that glaring cock-up and the lack of support for a memory card in slot 2, I’d have to say that Sly 3 was a pretty fun little platformer.
Gonna tackle Psychonauts next. That ought to keep me busy until Rogue Galaxy hits the US.
Booyakasha! Mad respec to Sacha Cohen an’ his crew for bustin’ batty on da ice. Check it.
In my search to find other vocoder bands this evening, I came across SpaceSynth.net.
SpaceSynth is 80s-sounding synth music with a peppy upbeat flavor. It sounds like a lot of what I heard in PC and Amiga demos when I was a kid. Interestingly enough, SpaceSynth is nowhere to be found in Ishkur’s famous guide.
Go download Through The Space by Galaxion and you’ll get a pretty good feel for the genre.
And yes, a few SS artists use vocoders. Bless them! Even if science finally figures out how to make robots sing someday, vocoders will still sound better. Or at least cooler, anyway.
Wowie! I just found out about this 80s band called Newcleus.
They only released two albums in the early 80s but there’s some good stuff there! They did a lot of old-school rap which is corny and not really something I’m into…but they also did a lot of early instrumental electro with a liberal use of vocoders and that shit is SWEET.
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