So I started to think: What would it take to get Flash on the iPad? Seeing that it’s a political situation the clear answer is that the CEO of Adobe needs to make nice with Steve. And then it hit me: Who the hell is the CEO of Adobe? Back in the day THE guy at Adobe was Warnock but that was eons ago — so who is running Adobe today? And much to my shock after doing a Google search I came across the page below and it tells you everything that’s wrong with this picture: There is no strong CEO at Adobe — the company is still in the shadow of Warnock. Read more…
This collection of Phone cases were issued to celebrate the tenth anniversary of One Piece. The first set of three features Monkey D. Luffy Wanted, Chopper Pink, and a Chopper Black version: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 30, 2010 in Comic Books
Shōjo manga fans may feel jilted but here’s a sad preview of Marvel Heartbreakers. The lack of quality in this book kills me because once upon a time there was an American tradition of romantic comic books which could appeal to the ladies which lasted until about the 60s, but as the industry retreated to the boys treehouse of comic book shops in the 80s the genre had all but faded. While I’ve been impressed with Marvel’s ability to do great work in the kids market, this book shows that Marvel doesn’t see the potential of the audience. And while the ladies are reading comics these days they’re more likely to be Japanese manga than anything that Marvel might put out as seen below: Read more…
During the CD-ROM era of the 90s the only real game in town was Macromind Director. The program first started life out as an animation program bit with the boom in multimedia Director gained a programming language called Lingo and had a loyal following. Then the damn web came along and ruined it all: There was a web version of Director called Shockwave, but due to the overhead of bitmap graphics another program called Flash started to build rapid momentum. Macromedia would acquire Flash and rumor has it that Director is still around but the notion of getting a Lingo gig is history. And now that it’s the year 2010 I’m seeing the same thing slowly start to happen to Flash all over again.Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
This interesting video clip author Wade Davis attempts to answer the question of what would alien anthropologists think of humans? His answer is that they might be impressed with our technology but not with our social structures. Actually my guess is that they might also see us a technologically backwards as a species that could achieve interstellar space travel would be eons ahead of what we think of as cutting edge.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
I just came across this tribute video from NASA which to me underscores how much we owe to those who put their lives on the line to travel into space. With the advent of space tourism we tend to forget that sending up a spaceship into orbit is in fact going into harms way. It’s sad to me that we don’t honor these brave folks by investing in NASA.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 29, 2010 in Science
From what I’m reading the upcoming NASA budget will do three things: Give up the underfunded quest to return to the moon, keep the ISS flying until 2020 and push to outsource a shuttle replacement which would mean scrapping the Ares I rocket. This is all unconfirmed at this point, but the it looks like NASA funding will increase by $6 billion which sounds good on paper, but may not be enough to replace the shuttle soon enough. Read more…
This is such a strange bobble head: It’s suppose to be Ultraman however his head has been decapitated and replaced with an old school television set which is showing Ultraman on its screen. But making this toy even stranger is that the television head will shake and nod which is powered by solar power. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 28, 2010 in Animation, Fandom
This is the video for the Ichirou Mizuki song It Is Not This! Korejanai Robo! which tells the heartbreaking tale of a child otaku who years from a Gundam toy but whose clueless parents get him a cheap bootleg instead. Of course our little hero isn’t going to take this slight, so he takes his revenge on the wannabe Gundam. But this mecha knockoff has a few tricks up his sleeve. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jan 27, 2010 in Science
I think an octopus is about as different as you can get from being a human — eight legs, lives underwater and a hard beak at the center. Yet this video shows clear evidence that they’re quite bright creatures who are quite capable of using tools. This makes me realize that as humans we might have a bias towards thinking that only humanoid creatures have intelligence — and often the worst offenders I see are science fiction films. Read more…
