Tech Tok

As is tradition in this house, I rewired my stereo system the day after boxing day, this time with a DTS-ES capable receiver wired to 8 speakers. So far only “Casshern”, “Return of the King” and “Top Gun” produce 6.1 feeds that the system can use, however… but boy do they rock. My receiver comes with a nice little button to send stereo sound to all of the speakers. It also has a remote mic. so it can set up everything automatically, including speaker distance, size and gain. I chose a Denon system, but I had been eying a Yamaha amp just before I did. As a downside, Hilary Duff sounds better in stereo than surround, I’ve found. :) [This is entirely due to the mix on the DVD, I'm pretty sure]. Feliz Navidad!

Back in September File Share Day Reid mentioned file sharing day. If you go to their site now, File Share News you’ll see that the BitTorrent network has basically been sacked by legal action, with the SuprNova BitTorrent tracker and the like now off the net. Merry Christmas! Ho! Ho! Ho! Btw, IMHO these networks are optimized for ripping off popular stuff you’re supposed to pay for. None of the legal free stuff I’m interested in seems to be widely hosted, so I don’t miss them. I just thought you should know how seriously the MPAA is now taking the internet piracy thing. Again, IMHO, this is all kid’s stuff anyway either way you look at it. [Only kids are interested in bad copies of MPAA movies, and no one wants kids looking at the other XXX garbage that tags along on those networks anyway]. Also, here I may be wrong as I wasn’t looking closely, but music seems to be only a small portion of BitTorrent networks.

Not really news for uber geeks, but sometimes the latest from Japan never makes it out of Japan: Gadgetry

I happened to be watching Channel M (Vancouver) during their Spanish show, and came across a Christian Blaze made-in-Canada 19 minute film short called “Spank”. In order to make his production deadline he had to learn the Maya 4.5 3D modelling software himself. Now I’ve already seen one French film on a similar topic about 5 years ago, but this one seems tastefully racy and plays out like a SIM game, I believe. See Spank. The trailer on Channel M was actually a bit more enticing. Mark your calendars, its hitting Toronto Feb 9-14 2005 at the Bloor Cinema for the Love & Lust International Film Fest. I hear it has a mind-wrecking ending. Ooo la la, what hath Maya wrought?!