June 17, 2011

Blu-ray Deals @ Best Buy $6

by Ryan

For those of you who buy blu-rays, you know they aren't cheap and
generally on sale means like $15, sometimes $10 and maybe $8 but
almost never do movies go for $6 (yes they often call $18 to $24 on
sale, but that is BS). But sometimes Lionsgate has some good sales and
not all their movies are bad. At least I think all the movies for $6
are from Lionsgate but I didn't check everyone.

Anyways like most americans I check the blu-ray sales every friday and
85% of the time it isn't worth driving to Best Buy. But today I check
and the site listed most of the sale items as back ordered or not in
store, but as you probably know by now that is usually a lie. So just
call your store and ask if they have what you want and get them to
hold it for you. My store almost always has the stuff that the site
claims they don't.

What I got:

Crash - I knew fair well that this movie has PQ problems at least
according to blu-ray.com, so I put it in before writing this and YES
it does have PQ problems and the 6.1 soundtrack has major audio sync
problems. This is a great movie that I really enjoyed and I don't own
the DVD and I figured the blu-ray must look even a tad better than the
DVD but nope I think the DVD probably looked better, but I haven't
seen it for awhile. So despite being a great movie they totally
screwed up the blu-ray DO NOT BUY THIS (get the dvd or wait for a redo
on the blu-ray)! :( How could they release this with such problems, I
just don't get it? Note the 5.1 DD EX soundtrack shows less sync
issues but it is not very well done, but I only checked the first few
chapters. I might email Lionsgate or call them.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Crash-Blu-ray/118/

Lord of War - Great movie, have seen it before.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Lord-of-War-Blu-ray/49/

Red Heat - I might not have seen this, looks interesting. Oh and it
has some really good actors in it.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Red-Heat-Blu-ray/6760/

Requiem for a Dream - As you know is not a pleasant film but it is a
well done film and it has Connelly in it :) I have been checking for
this one to go on sale for about a year or more now.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Requiem-for-a-Dream-Blu-ray/343/

What else is on sale:

The Running Man

Kickboxer

The Ninth Gate

Chaos

Repo! The Genetic Opera

The Bank Job

Rambo: First Blood Part II - already have it

Rambo III - already have it

War - I think I probably should have picked this one up, as it looks
decent. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war-2007/

House of 1000 Corpses

King of New York

Basic Instinct

Crank

Reservoir Dogs - yes its a classic and I have seen it before but this
isn't really a movie you watch more than once as it is extremely
violent and not in a funny horror movie way.

The Descent - Yep probably should have picked this one up too, but $6
isn't free :D

Young Guns

First Blood - already have it

Total Recall

Stargate

The Punisher

Wonderland

High Tension

The Blair Witch Project

Bad Lieutenant

(as of Friday night, June 17, 2011)

June 16, 2011

Unfriendly Snake in the House :(

by Ryan

So I got home and was comfortably sitting upstairs, I then walk downstairs near the fridge and out of the corner of my eye I see a snake dart by. Yes a SNAKE....WTH is it doing in the house?! I have never seen a snake in the house before, heck they are even pretty rare in the yard.
I knew I would have to find this little bastard and get it back outside so I wouldn't end up having a snake in my bed. Although I have a strange feeling that this darn thing is planning on finding its way back to the house to come and get me :(

I looked around and finally found him. Pictured behind the fridge: (lol - you are probably telling yourself that it looks cute)

I had a flashlight with me and oddly at first he would head towards the source of light but later he decided it scarred him and he bunched up in the corner:

Now believe it or not I tend to think snakes are cool and the last thing I want to do is hurt this little guy so I grabbed a piece of wood and just tried to gently get him to move away from the fridge area so I could grab him. Ideally without even touching him with the stick. But this was not easy and it took like 15 minutes or something to get him far enough away from hiding that I could grab him. I had big winter gloves on so that when I did grab him he would be less likely to nab me, but also I don't want to come in contact with him directly. Anyways he moved really really really FAST! I managed to grab him by the tail just as he darted away but then he went into nasty aggressive mode. I managed to get my other hand near his head but he managed to wiggle free (I didn't want to squeeze him too tightly) and he started biting me, thankfully he was only biting into the glove but it was scary as hell, especially when he started going for my exposed skin. I mean he really gnawed down on the glove, not sure if this thing even has teeth but he puts on one hell of a show and is amazingly strong. At one point I had him just by the tail and he was able to go from hanging in the air to like his full height in the up direction (i.e. past my hand). That caused me to shake pretty bad as I was dodging him...successfully I might add :)

Yes snakes love to mock you xD

I wish I could have gotten more pictures but it was hard to hold him and take pictures... so wish I had of captured his mouth wide open as he struck. I have played with garden snakes as a kid but they were always pretty friendly.

I eventually got him out the door and started walking across the lawn with him, he managed to escape my grasp a few times but I quickly picked him up and would run a little further. I finally got to the end of the lawn and put him down. It just wasn't practical to try and move him further. But as soon as he was on the ground he started coming after me and darting into the air. So I found a stick and tried to push him away from the direction of the house as I really don't want him coming back, but I get the feeling I have not seen the last of him.

Yes I know the video is terrible, I was shaking like mad crazy but its a very short clip showing a tiny bit of his action. Note the really good stuff wasn't captured as I was too busy dodging.

(download)

Yeah go ahead and laugh at Ryan for being afraid of the little garden (like) snake. But you won't be laughing when he comes and visits you ;)
-Yes I tried to write this right after it happened xD

June 5, 2011

UNBOXING!! Polycom Soundpoint IP335 and TP-LINK TL-POE1505

by Ryan

So I ordered a Polycom Soundpoint IP335 (VOIP Phone) and a TP-LINK TL-POE1505 (power over ethernet injector - to power the phone)

Anyways Amazon Prime (free for students) meant that it was delivered on Saturday with free shipping. And despite FedEx screwing up (maybe they planned it this time) and sending it to their main routing hub it still managed to arrive on time! However on my last order it had the same timeline initially but it didn't make it on time...they claimed mechanical failure with the airplane the last time, but a little strange that it went to Tennessee again on this order.

The box came in fantastic condition

Some Random padding

Remove the padding and take out the boxes ;)

(download)

Now for the Polycom

(download)

And on to the POE Injector (note it comes with a short Ethernet cable as show in the last picture of this post)

I managed to update the firmware and boot rom of the phone by having my dhcp server tell the phone where my tftp server was and I had put all of the relevant files from polycom on the server.

And the whole system (wireless even ;)

I am still a total telephony n00b but I managed to get this phone provisioned and setup to talk to my FreePBX server. . . it was NOT EASY. Although the actual procedures are not hard, the information on said procedures is very dispersed and often incorrect. I will probably touch on some of the setup and my opinions on the VOIP world at a later time. But so far I do like the Polycom, and have placed a few calls on it.

April 8, 2011

Class today took a tour of the Milford Dam

by Ryan

We really couldn't have had a nicer day. It was light coat weather with a bright sun and a mild breeze. Somehow despite being around many dams and even visiting the Hoover dam, I had never got to see the turbines up close and personal before. Only about 6 students went today but the small group made it easy to explore around. Had I have known that they were fine with pictures I would have brought my DSLR but some of the pictures came out okay. I didn't take that many as a lot of the tour was in very low light and my little camera fails pretty spectacularly with low light.

Two very short videos

(download)

They are installing two new turbines and we got to climb down and see where they will be placed.

(download)

This hallway leads into little rooms where you can see the turbine shafts.

One of the shaft rooms... however this one needed some fixing as the water was above the platform, we walked into another one where the platform wasn't under water and we could walk right up to the shaft.

Up above

(download)

This little Pony seemed to match the paint job quite nicely.

The two sections on the end are where the new turbines will go.

(download)

Gauges (upstairs)

(download)

Like I said it was a really nice day.

(download)

Despite the fact that I can be a rather unenthusiastic person about a lot of things this was actually very cool. I mean dams are inherently cool but this was a neat facility and seemed to be run very well. Also rather historic, as the first turbines were installed in like 1910 and the current ones are from the 40's. It wasn't all that loud or hot in there either, although I am sure it gets a lot worse. Those turbines only need to be rebuilt every 40 to 50 years. A lot of very old but very reliable GE equipment in that place. This dam is here to stay unlike the Veazie dam and others which are being removed. Apparently the fish ladders at this dam are quite efficient, they said like 98% but I guess smaller fish have trouble with said ladders and even if the ladders are very efficient the fish must pass through quite a few dams as they travel up the river. Yet hydro is brilliantly clean power and requires very little up keep. This dam was automated in 1995. I really haven't looked into the whole fish issue (nor do I care to) but I think perhaps people need carefully weigh things as if you aren't going to have hydro you are going to be stuck with say gas, coal, etc, at least locally and for the time being that seems to be the case. Anyways the reason this dam gets to stay is they are going to build an 8 million dollar hydraulic lift for the fish.

March 11, 2011

iPad 2 (White) Buying Experience + Unboxing + Pictures & Video from Camera

by Ryan

Hi:

So today was the launch of Apple's iPad 2. You could start buying them in stores at 5:00pm in your time zone (EST for me). I wanted to get the white 32GB ATT model. Note I don't wait in long lines, it is just not my style!

A few minutes after 5:00pm I started driving towards the big city of Bangor. I first stopped by Target but they had already sold out. Target said they get a delivery on sunday but they had no idea if iPads would be included in that general delivery. Next I stopped by the ATT kiosk in the mall but they were also all out, however upon further questioning I found out that they hadn't even gotten their first shipment yet. The gentleman was very kind and said he would call me if the UPS truck showed up later that evening.

Finally I went to Best Buy. I arrived at about 5:30pm. I didn't think they would have any left. Anyways they had sectioned off the home appliance section of the store for an iPad 2 waiting line. Basically you go to the line and someone comes over with a sheet of paper and marks off which model you want and confirms if they still have it in stock. If they do they give you the sheet of paper and you wait in line. There wasn't much of a line, maybe 15 people. Then an associate starts from the head of the line and takes one piece of paper at a time and walks a little ways, to go and get your iPad and then returns to you with your iPad in hand. Even with only a few people in the line this is a very slow process. Basically it is a really silly (dumb) way of going about it, but again I don't really care as the line was short. Anyways he finally gets to the end of the line and hands me mine!! YEAH!! Then the line goes to one register that is setup in the far corner of the appliance section, where you can check-out and get accessories. Now I wanted to get one of Apple's magnetic smart covers but the only color they had left that I remotely liked was green and I really wanted a blue one. I looked around and noticed like 4 registers wide open and was like umm can I just leave this line now and go buy it over at that register?? They were like umm.... sure why not ;) Thus I saved a lot more waiting. Granted if you were all n00b like you could get them to turn it on for you and what not, but like seriously I was all set with that. Thus I am now a bit poorer but oh so very happy :) All in all it probably only took about 15 minutes of waiting, which is an acceptable amount of time IMO. Gosh there are some benefits to living in the boonies. As far as I could tell Best Buy was more or less out of iPad 2's by the time I left, so I guess I lucked out (still need to get a case at some point). And that is just how I roll!

Despite being a hardcore OS X user, I really don't have much experience with iOS. My last iOS device was an iPod Touch 1st Generation. Thus iOS 4.3 should be a fun experience for me, although it will probably take a little bit to get used to. After getting home I went ahead and unboxed it and I took some photos of the unboxing which you can find below. Note these are just quick pics taken with my pocket camera, so yes I know they are not remotely pro looking pics. Then I synced it with iTunes and setup a free MobileMe account so I can use the Find my iPad feature. This worked really nicely and it totally pinpointed my current location. Next I took some pictures and video with the iPad 2 and have included them in this post. Finally I received a FaceTime call from my friend @patspinney via his iPhone 4. Yes the camera is not great on the iPad 2 but it worked well, i.e., it was still fun and the audio quality was very good. Lastly I am writing this blog post! I am sure that when I get time I will share more with you guys as far as my favorite iOS apps and what not.

Unboxing pictures --

Word of Caution: I found it extremely difficult to remove the micro-sim card. So be very patient with it, it is very easy to mar up the opening to the release hole.

Pictures and Video taken with the iPad 2 --

Yes they are not remotely impressive but I knew that before I bought it. But look at it this way, the iPad pricing hasn't changed since version 1 and the 1st iPad was a great little device (got to play with @patspinney's from time to time), yet this is smaller, faster, and white! Thus still a very good deal. Also it is pretty much your only choice. Say no to Xoom ;)

Oh and sorry these are pretty random, but they do a great job of illustrating the shortcomings of the camera.

hmm lets see what Posterous does with the video links that I have pasted in this email from Dropbox. Note depending on what it does I might take the videos down in the future as they are rather large.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2091843/pragma/IMG_0014.MOV

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2091843/pragma/IMG_0001.MOV

Note this was not a review. Just a first look. Although I probably won't do a review. But I hope to share more about the iPad and apps in the future.

March 7, 2011

Sound of rain outside my window recorded just moments ago

by Ryan

(download)

Basically I just pointed my Yeti microphone towards my window and hit record. Anyways this is what it has sounded like all morning. Rain and More Rain!