Who is the villian??

"Star Trek: Into Darkness" just released its first official trailer.  While the movie comes out in May, two of the main characters have yet to be revealed and credited.  Most notably the name of the dashing young villain played by Benedict Cumberbatch.  The trailer does reveal a clue however.  I've collaged it in the graphic below.

Hmmmm...... Khan?  Gary Mitchell?  The casting of Alice Eve with a 60's bob haircut provides a clue perhaps?

UPDATE:  Apparently Alice Eve is going to play Carol Marcus.  As of this posting the villain is being reported as someone named John Harrison.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Review

For those that have seen my Twitter posts will know that for the past 2 years I have HATED my smartphone.  My Droid 2 will hopefully make more than 3 skips as I sling it into Pine River Pond.  Friday night I picked up a Samsung Galaxy S3, and after 3 days of use I might may get to report that this is THE smartphone everyone (that pays for a $40 monthly data plan) deserves to have!

The ceramic super hero cow courtesy of Erin's sophomore art class.

External Design:
In my opinion, the photo and video reviews do not portray the elegant look and design adequately.  The device is strikingly gorgeous and lustrous.  It does not look or feel 'plasticy' at all on the front.  The backside however, having a clear metallic sheen, does look like it will be easily prone to scratching.  It also feels a bit slippery in the hand (a case will be ordered post haste).  This could simply be me being more used to the rubbery grip of my Droid, which never feel out of my hands once (sans protective case) in the 2 years I owned it.

I won't bore you with the button locations, camera, headphone jacks, blah blah blah.  Suffice it to say that everything is where it generally needs to be (except I keep touching the top to shut the phone off).  The back cover is a bitch to get off if you do not have fingernails, but that's also been typical of phones in the past few years.  No major yay/nay buying decisions with any of this.

Technical Specs:
The Galaxy S3 comes with a blazing fast 1.5GHz dual core made by ARM with 2GB of RAM.  The phone clearly acts like it has some ponies running under the hood as the interface (which we'll get to in a moment) is smooth and zippy!  Yay!

The display is a 4.8" Super AMOLED screen and is beautiful.  I've not watched much video with it, but just looking at photos, wallpapers, games, etc. clearly reveals stunning acuity.  Is it as good or better than iPhone's Retina display?  Who cares really.

User Interface & Navigation
The Galaxy comes with Android Ice Cream Sandwhich with an update to Jelly Bean coming before year end.  Samsung pulled a fast one here though and plopped their TouchWiz interface on top.  While I've read complaints from more technical reviewers that they prefer the clean interface of Android to TouchWiz, I can't say I find a problem here.  The navigation is similar to a desktop PC/Mac type interface; easy shortcuts to most often used apps on top with the ability to drill down to EVERYTHING through an Apps icon.  Even though I watched all of the help videos and read the manual, I really did not need to.  I was cruising through the phone quite easily as the dude at Staples was swiping my credit card.

I will say, and am happy to report, that the usage and speed of the interface is AWESOME.  I have stated for years that there exists NO user interface that is fast enough.  Well, guess what, the Galaxy S3....isn't either....but it's pretty damn close!  Check out my video.

Here is a bullet-ed list of features:

• Camera:  The fasted mobile phone camera I have ever seen.  I actually missed some shots because I was "building in" the delay time getting ready to take a picture.  Check out my Flickr page for examples.  Video is HD and both have loads of controls and editing features.  Oh, and there is a front facing camera.
• Googleverse:  If you're in the Google universe like me than this is the phone for you.  Once I entered my user ID and password my phone was ready to go with my contacts, calendar, documents, yada yada.
• Applications:  I'm still astounded by how fast everything operates.  Facebook, web browsing, media access, games....no lines, no waiting.  I will note that Samsung did pre-load a bunch of stuff on the phone.  I'm 'this' close to calling it crapware but have not played with them all enough to see if there is potentially a value add.  As with any Android device though I'm being weary of going crazy with the application installs (and so should you).
• S-Voice:  Yeah, it sucks.  Does not hold a candle to Siri.  I did have some fun with it though and can definitely see myself using in the car for hands free calling, app launching, and music.  The good news is that with the upgrade to Android Jelly Bean I will be getting Google Voice Search which in some recent reviews out-does Siri.
• Oh right, it's a phone:  Call quality was fine, no noticeable advantage over any other phone I've used (except for that StarTac I had in 2000...woh, did that suck).  It does come with some cool ear buds/headset.  They are the funky in-ear, noise cancelling ones that all you hear is the rush of blood through your circulatory track when wearing them.  In the settings there is a neat little headset "tuner" control, whereby you listen to a set of tones in both ears and respond as to whether they are audible. Exactly like that hearing test you had in school.  Once completed, it tunes the EQ through the headset to your hearing profile.  Pretty cool.

I will note that I made this buying decision after checking out the iPhone 5 through reviews and hands-on via friends (I waited for YOU man!).  My one word take on the iPhone 5: UNREMARKABLE.

Anywho, that's where it stands.  Keep checking back as I may add more to the review over the coming days/weeks.  Cheers!

Beauty & The Beast
presented by the Dover Middle School

The City of Dover ON DEMAND produced a brief showcase of the Dover Middle School Drama Club's upcoming performance of "Beauty & The Beast".  If you attend the show take note of the first class spotlight work by the lighting crew....ahem, I mean the performance by my daughter Emma in the role of Chip!

Click here to see the video.  Who is that at 1:15??

Happy Anniversary Sweety!

23 years ago this month, and by sheer coincidence, I marched side-by-side at high school graduation with Chrissy Schweizer. 7 months later I called her out of the blue for a date (she said 'yes'). 3 years after, I said, "Let's buy a house" (she said 'sure'). 1 year after that we marched at our wedding to the theme from Star Trek (she said 'I do'). 3 yrs later we had a baby girl (I said 'push!'). 3 yrs after that, we had another girl (I said 'great, more girlie toys, sigh'). This morning I woke up, kissed her on the forehead, and wished her Happy Anniversary (I said 'Making breakfast?'). For those keeping track at home, that would be 17 yrs of marriage...well, 16 if you count the year I left and did missionary work in Guatemala.

I love you sweetheart! Happy Anniversary!!

Arcade cabinet restoration complete!

Well, 99% done. I still need to create a better marquee as the one I have created is printed on paper. Instead of buying one online I am considering calling around to some local print shops to see if they will take my design from Viso and print as a decal. I also need to figure out how to create some button descriptions for the control panel. I'm looking into water decals, but am worried that those would rub off. Will check around online.

Despite stripping down the computer's OS to bare minimum, some games stutter slightly. I may consider building the kids a new PC and taking theirs for the cabinet. The cabinet currently has a 1ghz Gateway while the kid's is a 2ghz with an external AGP video card.

I've also e-mailed Ultimarc as the controller will not switch to 8-way mode for some reason. This is making some top-shooter games difficult to play (1942, Gunbird, Sinistar, etc.).

Oh, and what a b$#@! it was getting this thing up the basement stairs!! Ouch!

Arcade cabinet restoration: Part 3.5 - Controls and front panels

I still need to do some additional touch-up, but for the most part she's ready!

Arcade cabinet restoration: Part 3 - Controls

Ok, it's coming together. By tomorrow afternoon I should be chasing Inky and Blinky....and the other two....

I ordered my controls from Ultimarc last Sunday and had them by Wednesday (I guess that's why I paid $18 for shipping). All told it took me about 3 hours and 2 trips to Radio Shack to complete the process of installing and wiring. I must say I'm quite pleased with the results, especially since they ACTUALLY WORKED when I plugged them in!!

I'm not typically very anal about wiring. In this case though I was a bit more careful and took my time. I avoided using solder on all connections but one and used crimped connectors mostly. Everything worked in MAME perfectly.

I'm in the process of painting the front panel and should have that ready by morning. Excelsior!