Did I watch the same episode?

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Sometimes I wonder if I\’m watching the same episode? HeroPress reviewed The Best Below, and generally didn\’t seem to like it…
What are my clues?

  • Oh dear God… what has happened to Doctor Who?
  • The Beast Below was written by Steven Moffat himself, the story showed about as much subtly and finesse as an episode of the god-awful Australian K9 series, simply delivered with a higher production budget and more talented actors.
  • I really hope this is not a sign of things to come as The Beast Below made Love & Monsters and Fear Her look like high art.
  • See the Rest of the HeroPress review at Doctor Who: The Beast Below.

I just am shaking my head, because it seems like I watched a different episode… While I remember the scenes he\’s discussing, I certainly didn\’t feel like it was even close to Love & Monsters, nor Fear her… It was paced well, had some amount of tension, but it was more of a detective story than an Action Adventure romp.
Yes, the climax of the episode was pressing a freaking white button, but this felt more like a excellent classic series story than a \”new Who\” episode. Which sounds odd, but is a refreshing change…
The 11th Doctor seems to be shaping up to include some of the aspects of the Sylvester Mccoy Doctor… For example, when he uses the cup of Water to check for Engine vibrations, his answer to Amy is that \”He thinks so fast sometimes, that he doesn\’t remember what he was trying to do\” (I\’m horribly paraphrasing here). Then a few minutes later with Liz 10, he explains why he did it…. He\’s keeping secrets… And distorting things like stating that they are observers only and they cannot get involved….
The eleventh Doctor is shaping up well, and I personally don\’t see any problems yet with his reign…
But I must stress, it is perfectly fine that we don\’t agree completely with each other regarding the episode.  We are all fans, and we all have different likes & dislikes…  For example, I really dislike quite a bit of Love & Monsters, but more because of the fact that it wasn\’t a Doctor Who episode…  What it was, I don\’t quite know…  Compare that with Blink, another Doctor \”Lite\” episode, even though the Doctor wasn\’t really it in, it worked as a Doctor Who episode…
Fear Her?  While it wasn\’t a \”absolutely fantastic\” episode, it still was pretty good… Certainly better than \”Love & Monsters\”.
For another viewpoint on the episode…  I submit the Blogtor Who review of The Beast Below.

Season 5, the Year of Smith & Moffat

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

So far, we have seen two episodes in Doctor Who, Season 5…  The Eleventh Hour & The Beast Below.
I plan to write up a quick review of both, possibly today.  But never the less, I have to say, Doctor Who has survived the production team change, and the main actor regeneration.  (Typically both don\’t occur at the same time…)
Matt Smith is doing excellent as the Doctor, he has brought a new energy back to the series that has gone missing over the last season or two…  But the real difference is the scripts.  Stephen Moffat\’s scripting has brought a touch of darkness to these last two episodes, but also that touch of hope that has been missing in the \”Year of the Specials\”.  It also has brought back that question of \”What is the Doctor\” doing?
It also appears that \”cracks\” are going to be an integral part of the story arc this year.  They literally are showing up every where…
Also, we are seeing inside the character\’s minds…  Both the Doctor & Amelia have \”shown\” us what they have are thinking at one time or another in the last two episodes.  I was concerned that this might back fire, but so far, it\’s been an nice effect, and has worked quite well.
I look forward to the rest of the season….  And Long Live the Moffat.

Apple Announcing WebKit2

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

This is a heads-up that we will shortly start landing patches for
a new WebKit framework that we at Apple have been working on for a
while. We currently call this new framework ‘WebKit2’.

WebKit2 is designed from the ground up to support a split process
model, where the web content (JavaScript, HTML, layout, etc) lives
in a separate process. This model is similar to what Google Chrome
offers, with the major difference being that we have built the
process split model directly into the framework, allowing other
clients to use it.

As Gruber says at Daring Fireball….

Whoa.

What does this mean? If a tab or another window locks up, you can terminate (in theory) just that one tab or Window. If a Window or tab locks up, it shouldn\’t lock up the entire browser, your other windows should still continue to work.
Chrome has these features, but Webkit is used by a variety of other browsers, even on other platforms, so this is big.

Making sense of your credit cards…

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

Your credit card number actually contains quite a bit of information, if you know what your looking for.  For starters, the first digit in the number indicates what type of card you’re dealing with. This number is always a 3, 4, 5, or 6, and can be interpreted as follows:

3 = Travel or entertainment card (e.g., Amex or Diner’s Club)
4 = Visa Card
5 = MasterCard
6 = Discover Card

Visa credit card numbers

For Visa cards, the numbers are 16 digits long. Visa has used to have 13 digit numbers, as well, but those have been mostly (completely?) migrated over to the 16 digit format.

When looking at the balance of the numbers, the 2nd through 6th digits are the bank number, and the 7th-15th numbers are your account number. The remaining digit is known as the “check digit,” which is used to help determine whether or not the overall number is legitimate.

MasterCard credit card numbers

For MasterCard cards, the number is also 16 digits long. The first digit is always a 5 and the second digit is always between 1-5. The 2nd-3rd, 2nd-4th, 2nd-5th, or 2nd-6th digits correspond to the bank number, and the remaining digits up through the 15th are the account number. As above, the 16th digit is the check digit.

American Express card numbers

For American Express cards, the number is always 15 digits long and it always starts with 34 or 37. The 3rd and 4th digits indicate the card type (business vs. personal) and the currency. The 5th-11th digits are the account number, the 12th-14th digits are the card number associated with the account, and the 15th digit is, once again, the check digit.

Should any older [Insteon] firmware version units be discarded?

Benjamin SchollnickNo Comments

I have some Insteon units that are a few years old. Even though they work could older firmware versions cause the system to be slower or interfere with normal operation? I thought I heard some people having concerns with having older units in their system.

Generally speaking, the Smarthome Insteon units, have been designed to be backward compatible.  So, having older devices should not hamper the faster speeds of the newer modules.
Switching from a 2414U, to a 2413U, saw a dramatic speed increase with all of my older devices, and the newer dual-band modules are even faster with the 2413U than the older devices…
Now, you may want to phase out some of your older devices, simply to either bring in the newer technology, or to aid in eliminating dead-zones…  For example, replacing an old lamplinc, with a dual-band lamplinc…
But that\’s completely voluntary, and you might even be able to sell your older units to someone that is looking for inexpensive units….