By Evan Ackerman

Being the frustratingly indecisive and demanding consumer that I am, I find Consumer Reports to be an invaluable resource for major purchases. Their winter 2010 electronics buying guide has hit the shelves, chock full of handy and ad free advice on what to buy and where. One of the more helpful tidbits is this chart, which tells you when to repair stuff and when to replace stuff based on the advice of market analysts and engineering experts and taking into account improvements in new models.

Of course, much of this information depends on what kind of user you are… If you’re a hardcore gamer, you might not be able to survive for more than a year or two without upgrading your system. It’s also worth mentioning that for computers (both desktops and laptops), upgrading while repairing (or just upgrading) is often a viable option. It’s a slightly easier process with desktops than with laptops, of course, but even with laptops, it’s often possible to upgrade hard drives (to improve the speed or capacity) and RAM. And you can do it yourself, for pretty cheap… Usually, all it takes is a screwdriver and a little perseverance.

If nothing else, this chart is a handy way to justify upgrading some of your gear. Hey, if Consumer Reports says I should replace my plasma TV with something new after I accidentally smash my crappy old one with a hammer, who am I to argue? Not that I actually own a plasma TV, of course. Or, for that matter, a hammer.

[ Consumer Reports Blog ] VIA [ Consumerist ]

By Evan Ackerman

There was a lot of cool stuff at Maker Faire this year. Like, seriously, a lot. I was there for both days and I didn’t feel like I managed to see everything, although my sore feet and full memory cards would beg to differ. Gallery of pics, after the jump.

Can’t tell what something is? Post in the comments and I’ll give you my best guess.

By Evan Ackerman

One of the most popular attractions at Maker Faire are the Tesla coils. There were several scattered around, although the most prominent are the twin 10-foot coils constructed by Nevada Lightning Lab. The coils have no problem bridging a 25 foot gap with several million volt discharges, and they can wirelessly power nearby electronics as well as cook hot dogs.

There was also a somewhat smaller (okay, WAY smaller) coil from the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics. It was a sparky little guy, though, and a brave grad student (or a not-so-brave one who knows how electricity works) donned a suit of metal armor and did battle with the electrons.

More pics, including a lovely closeup of a discharge and a long exposure of a three phase Jacob’s ladder, after the jump.

[ Nevada Lightning Lab ]
[ SCIPP ]

By Evan Ackerman

You may not realize it, but here in the US, our internet kinda sucks. We pay more money for less speed than just about everyone else in Europe and Asia. The town of Wilson, in North Carolina, got fed up with this and decided to form their own community ISP, called Greenlight, which was unsurprisingly able to compete so effectively with more traditional companies like Time Warner that you can’t even really call it competition:

For example, the city offers an expanded basic cable (81 channels), 10 Mbps (download and upload), and a digital phone plan with unlimited long distance to the U.S. and Canada, all for $99.95. A comparable plan from Time Warner Inc., with six fewer channels (no Cartoon Network, Disney, The Science Channel, ESPNU, ESPN News, or ESPN Classic) and lower upload speeds costs $137.95, for an introductory rate, which lasts a few months and then will likely be ratcheted up.

Greenlight also offers every single cable channel plus premium channels, unlimited phone service, and 20mbps internet for $170 (Time Warner’s fastest available service is 15mbps). And as if that wasn’t enough, Greenlight even has a 100 mbps service. Oh, and you know what else? They have 24/7 local phone support and actually respond to feedback from their community. See? It’s so much better, it’s not even funny. So, you’d think that in light of this, Time Warner would realize that their overpriced and underperforming services would need an overhaul to remain competitive in a world that depends so heavily on internet.

Instead, Time Warner is lobbying the North Carolina senate to pass legislation outlawing community ISPs. And it’s apparently working, too, which I can’t figure out because what could possibly be wrong with providing a better service to people at a cheaper price? Time Warner’s argument is that they can’t compete against a community-owned ISP that’s able to provide services at cost, but it seems to me that the real issue is that Time Warner’s services cost a lot, and they suck, and that’s why there’s no competition. If Time Warner wants to complain about competition, maybe they should first try to get competitive, instead of attempting to outlaw anyone who does things better than they do.

[ DailyTech ] VIA [ Engadget ]

By Evan Ackerman

I’m a big fan of Pixar movies, as you may have noticed. Even so, I was a little bit, um, let’s say, skeptical when I first saw the trailer:

It wasn’t the flying house that I was worried about. It was the crotchety old man versus the slightly chubby, irrepressibly annoying little kid. What a hilaaaarious juxtaposition, as proven by myriads of mediocre sitcoms!

All I can say now is, I should have had more faith in Pixar. Over the weekend, Disney invited us to meet with director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera, followed by a screening of the first half of the movie… And at this point, the only thing I’m worried about is how I’m going to survive until May 29th a whole 45 minutes short of the entire movie. More about Up (spoiler-free except for one little tidbit), after the jump.

The overall premise for Up is the idea of feeling overwhelmed and wanting to escape from it all, a feeling that we can all relate to, hence the visual metaphor of the floating house. The main character, 78 year old Carl Fredrickson, is based largely on this idea, but in a very deep and poignant way. The first 20 minutes or so of the movie develop Carl’s character in a manner that Pixar hasn’t really touched before, and it was impressive, although somewhat difficult at times, to watch… Largely because at the beginning, Carl comes to embody that sense of unfulfilled dreams that on some level, most of us feel. As producer Jonas Rivera explains,

“Jokes and gags are funny, but what’s the emotional thing that’s going to stick in someone’s heart and stay with them for hours, days, years… And so that’s what we were looking for, something that really resonates with people. And I think ultimately, the humor will play better if it has that foundation of emotion.”

When you get personally involved with a character, you become more attuned to everything that they experience. Sad things are sadder and funny things are funnier. It takes a masterful touch to make this kind of involvement work in a self-described “action comedy adventure,” but Pixar made it happen.

Up will be the first Pixar movie available in Disney 3D. Pete Docter made a point of explaining how Up was not created to showcase the 3D technology, meaning that there aren’t going to be all kinds of things jumping out at you screaming “HEY LOOK, IT’S 3D!” Rather, it will be a subtle effect that you’ll notice at the beginning, but will gradually blend into the background of the film.

Part of what I was concerned about when I first saw the trailer was that the movie would be not made fantastical enough. The juxtaposition of the two main characters initially seemed so mundane that the whole flying house bit made me raise an eyebrow. But of course, Pixar was well aware of this, and structured the visuals of the movie into “a reality that would support that.” Take Carl, for example: While most people are about seven heads tall, Carl is only three, and he’s built like a brick. And the interior of Carl’s house has been “chunkified,” where everything has been made just slightly too big, giving it the feeling of a doll house as opposed to a real house… It’s a highly effective departure from the tendency of animated films to strive for photorealism, and it makes everything that happens in the movie feel like it could really be happening in the movie.

Well, almost everything.

I’ll leave you with one little spoiler to ponder: just imagine, for a second, that you were to give a dog a collar that translates everything he’s thinking into human speech…

[ Up ]

We all spend a lot of money on gadgets, and it’s really damn frustrating when electronics companies seem to do their level best to make things difficult or impossible to repair… If I own it, shouldn’t I be able to fix it? This is what the Maker’s Bill Of Rights calls for.

Some of these things are not entirely practical for some consumer electronics, sure… But come on, why can’t everyone just use USB power adapters? Seriously? The reason, of course, is that every time you buy a new gadget you have to buy a new power adapter for $15 that costs the company a dime to make. Sigh. I don’t know what it’s going to take to enforce this stuff, but if any of our readers happen to be in positions of power in major industrialized governments, you should see what you can do.

VIA [ MAKE ]

By Evan Ackerman

People have been posting Monty Python clips on YouTube for years… Not to put too fine a point on it but, YouTube users have been distributing copyrighted multimedia content without authorization. Shocking. Rather than go after poor college kids with lawsuits like the RIAA and MPAA have decided to do, the Pythons themselves started their own YouTube channel with this description:

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

But we want something in return.

None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.

As of yesterday, Monty Python’s DVDs are now #2 on Amazon’s Movies and TV bestsellers list, which is an increase of 23,000% (yes, thousand) over pre-YouTube sales. Okay, so this model obviously can’t work for everything, but the point is that free content can actually get people to pay for what they like. The key is to embrace new media creatively rather than try and suppress or destroy it. Easier said than done, perhaps, but if Monty Python can do it…

Latest video from the Python’s YouTube channel, after the jump.

[ Monty Python on YouTube ] VIA [ BBG ]

By Evan Ackerman

For those of us unfortunate enough to be Americans right now, we have more to worry about than who we’re going to elect as the next president. We also have to be paranoid about whether we’ll actually be voting for who we intend to vote for at all. Our system (make that systems) for casting votes are not only notoriously confusing, but also notoriously hackable. DVICE has an interactive map of the United States, showing which states are using the less hackable but more confusing paper ballots, which states are using the more hackable but less confusing electronic voting machines, and where all of the other methods of voting fall on that spectrum. You can click on each state for more detailed information, including pros and cons on the different types of voting machines.

Of course, this doesn’t imply that voting on an electronic machine means your vote is going to get hacked, nor does it imply that you’re going to make a mistake voting on punch cards. The point of these maps is simply to make you aware of potential issues with the voting process in your state, since these things have a way of screwing themselves up. Funny, that.

There is a bright side to all this, however: when your guy loses, now you’ve got something to blame it on. Canada is starting to look pretty good now, eh?

[ DVICE ]

By Evan Ackerman

And now, it’s here, for real. Right below the comment form on (as far as I know) any and all YouTube videos is a button that says “Audio Preview.” Click on it, and a computerized voice will read back what you’ve typed in. The unfortunate reality is that the people who need this feature most are probably also the people who are least likely to use it, and it’s not required that you preview before you post… Yet.

VIA [ Webmonkey ]
Comic from [ xkcd ] and reproduced under CC license

What started out as a terrible rumor this morning has unfortunately been confirmed by Ain’t It Cool News. Visual FX wizard Stan Winston, who is probably well known to both gagdet and movie enthusiasts, passed away last night. I’ve already made mention of my love for Jurassic Park as a kid, and it was while reading about the effects behind the movie that I first learned about Stan Winston and his many contributions to the visual effects industry.

His work, and the studio that bears his name, was responsible for some of the greatest animatronic creations to ever grace the silver screen. From the Terminator films to Jurassic Park and more recently Iron Man, his work will stand as a lasting legacy for future generations of movie buffs to enjoy. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and everyone who was ever lucky enough to work with him.

[ AICN - Rest In Peace Stan Winston ]