Last night My wife, the twins and I went to South Reno and watch the Lights of Tanea, thanks to @katerzz for bringing them to light. What this group does with Christmas lights is amazing. You may have seen video’s on YouTube similar, and i don’t know who started them, but this group has 3 houses right there together, plus the rest of the street, while not automated, has got some of the largest static displays you have seen.
Carlo was outside talking to people in their cars and walking by. I chatted with him about the time and while he doesn’t keep track of the hours he put into the project he did say "I started the programming pretty much after I took down last years and finished as this years went up. I’m still tinkering on timings too. To put the display up I had 2 weeks vacation and it took the whole time."
Pretty cool stuff on it’s own but it makes it even more special that they collect money for charities. Carlo supports the local Multiple Sclerosis Foundation but said they will give it to anybody that the donor prefers. Last year they collected over $2,000 and are shotting for $4,000 plus this year.
The video below was shot on my new cell phone so it’s not eh best but pretty cool none the less.
Our 2 youngest (11 months) had been a bit slow to crawl. We were hoping they would get moving however now that they are can we tie them down. Trent LOVES the stereo equipment and rushes over so he can push every button and turn every knob. It took me 30 minutes the other night to get the settings back to the correct place. Speakers were turned off, surround turned off, muting, etc. Amy had to grab something from the back room a few days ago, a 20 second task, and Trent was sitting playing with some toys. As she was walking back down the hall the stereo got cranked up to a level that was WAY TOO LOUD. Trent was sitting in front of the stereo again looking at her like "WHAT?".
My wife has always liked medical things and has made comment on several occasions that she would have loved to have been a nurse. When she saw in the paper that the Bodies Revealed Exhibition was in Sacramento we knew we needed to go (even though we did the standard "do you really want to go?" at least 7-10 times).
This last weekend we packed up the twins with all of the standard diaper bag gear and headed down to Sac. We had called Amy’s sister and Bob (The Brother-in-law) and planned to meet them. We were a bit surprised to see such a small building as I was thinking museum type spaces. However the small accommodations didn’t detract from the displays at all. It was absolutely fascinating, the manner in which they preserve the bodies lets them do all kinds of creative displaying.
The process uses acetone to remove all the water from tissue on a traditionally preserved body. They then use a polymer in conjunction withe a vacuum chamber that somehow replaces all the water with the polymer. Your left with a plasticized mummy. With everything being plasticized you can remove bone, skin and other tissues leaving organs, blood vessels, muscle etc. My favorite one was the blood vessels (see image). You can’t believe how fine of a network runs throughout the human body and I was amazed that one of the largest concentrations was in your heel. On displays of the heart and lungs they even colored the arteries vs the veins so you could see how blood circulated out then back in.
When we bought the tickets they let us in with our strollers, but a few minutes in the head attendant nabbed me and made me check mine, thus having to walk around the entire time holding Trent. He is the lighter of our twin boys but at 22-23 pounds and as squirmy as a worm out of the ground, it was tough holding him for 45 minutes. He also wanted to touch every display we walked within 3 feet of. We got to talking with a sympathetic attendant that told us it wasn’t fair as there are people that come in all the time with wild 2-4 year olds and, in her opinion, that was worse. Interesting fact, you tip one of the displays over and it cost the exhibitor $1,000,000 to replace. Wow!
There is a great deal of controversy over this exhibit though. All the bodes are of Asian origin and word has it they are all obtained through the black market. You can imagine how they came to be on the black market too. Within the Asian cultures it is definitely a no, no to have your body treated in such a way as these have been preserved. I can’t really condone taking peoples remains and doing something against their wishes, but I would have to tell you that it is unbelievable informative and educational, beyond anything I learned in the class room.
If you get the opportunity to go I highly recommend it as you will learn and see more about the human body in 45 minutes than the average person sees in their educational career.
We went to the new Cabela’s just outside Reno yesterday and my word, what a giant outdoor store. The place was packed with people and equipment. I kept imagining being the only one in there the night before and how small you would feel. The fist tank and stuffed animal exhibits (American Mountains & African Plains) were put together wonderfully. Amy was amazed at the size of a Tuna that was mounted on the wall (Blue 450 lbs and a Yellow Fin at 385 lbs).
I got a pair of Rocky hiking boots that were the most comfortable I have ever had.
So one of the kids picked up some styling gel and it made me think about the message marketers send, without really thinking things through. This bottle has a label that says "80% MORE FREE". I realize they were trying to tell us how great a deal it was but really. The 10% or 20% more that I have seen on other products is palatable but 80%? That means whoever bought this product before was getting 20% of the volume and paying the same price.
Translation – We were REALLY ripping you off before.
The Hi-Def content for the AppleTV is starting to appear. Most of it is in podcasts right now but there is some pretty good stuff. The Big D from Walt Disney has posted several HD videos of the Walt Disney World Theme Parks, Disney Adventure Video Podcast, DiggNation has a Hi-Def version of their podcast, Engadget, a handful of Mac User Tips, 2 or 3 Golf Tips segments and lots more. Just go to the iTunes store and search for "HD" or on the podcast directory there is a link for "AppleTV Podcast Showcase". Now I can’t wait for the movies to start showing up in HD. There is 1 up now from the Sundance Film Festival but it won’t be long before the mainstream movies are at least 720p.
So while everyone else at Twelve Horses is loving their iPhone (Thank you TH and customers) I returned mine. I was very conflicted about it, however no or poor integration with Exchange made it too much of an imbalance between form and productivity. I often have all the emails for the day cleared out just in my drive time (it’s really pretty scary). Instead of taking the $ I did do an exchange for an Apple TV. Overall I love it but there are some things to be aware of before you rush out and get one. Very clean and what everyone comes to expect from an Apple form factor. Likes
So easy to setup and get music and other content streamed to your stereo.
All the support you need for anyone that has kept up with the equipment times. Some non-Hi-Def TV owners will be upset because there is no RCA out, Just HDMI and Composite.
Tons of Space even with the smaller 40 Gig.
Super Small footprint at 7 x 7 x 1.
Easily updated firmware that can add tons of extra functionality. The example you have initially is that YouTube content is available through a 5-7 minute update (Charter 3 meg cable connection)
802.11n for faster networking and ultimately streaming of video.
Super quiet because it has no cooling fans.
Screen saver with all of your best photos is definitely captivating. My wife relented on thinking it was a silly purchase based on a 3 hour memory lane experience, courtesy of the AppleTV’s Screen saver.
Dislikes
Even thought it will sync your content locally it only syncs one instance of iTunes, not all of them. So I copied mine over and then went to sync everyone else’s, however you have to completely erase the original instance. This means My Music is local to the Apple TV however my wife’s, and 3 kids libraries can only be played by having their computers on and with iTunes fired up.
The Apple TV appliance itself displays in 1080i and can run video at 720p resolution and frame rates. So it’s Hi-Def right? No because the iTunes store doesn’t have any content at this resolution. I bet it’s only a matter of time though. I did download "The Greatest Game Ever Played" movie and I really couldn’t complain about the resolution (640 x 480). it wasn’t as crisp as Standard DVD but not too bad. I have heard that other content can look horrible such as the first couple seasons of Battlestar Galactica. But I confirmed through a colleague that it looked horrible even on his iPod video, so it was an original encoding issue rather than anything with the Apple TV.
You Tube content is there but not all of it. Before Google snatched them up the content was encoded into some format other than H.264 and MPEG4. i have heard they are converting older content but it’s probably not going to happen as fast as we all want. Also there is a log-in to my current YouTube account however once you log in there is no option to access any of my current videos. How useless is that? Better than the iPhone though that has horrible search options.
No Surround Sound Support, NONE. WTF? I have heard that even the hardware they put in it doesn’t have the throughput to do it. That really sucks.
Make sure you have ventilation because this thing gets HOT without cooling fans.
So because I thought it would sync everybody’s library I got the 160 Gig version. Since it does not I only have 5%-10% of the drive space used. If i had known that I think I might have opted for the 40 Gig. I’m ok with it for now because I predict that Hi-Def content is not far behind, which will eat up space like a sumo binging after an secluded Alaskan plane crash!
Over all I would have to say it was a good purchase and stopped me from having to drag my laptop and power cord over to the Family room and hook up and Mini jack to RCA cord all the time.
So I have made some changes to my site and added a few pages for the Twins. I will be adding several other videos of the rest of the family too but will be adding pages for these as well. If you look in the right hand column you will see the pages I have created.
Very clean and what everyone comes to expect from an Apple form factor. Likes
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