Unmistakable Marks

The magic powers of digital technology

The New York Times has one of those pieces about HDTV where someone frets about how ugly stars will look now that we don’t have the sucking power of NTSC blurring away all their imperfections. They specifically mention Cameron Diaz as someone who looks hideous and freakish under the cold light of the HD camera.

So here’s my question: Cameron Diaz has appeared in movies. Movies are shot on 35mm film. 35mm film has more resolution than HDTV (1080p, the absolute highest HD resolution, is two megapixels; in still photography, it’s widely considered that six megapixels is where digital starts being comparable to 35mm film). Cameron Diaz, frequently viewed on film, has not previously been widely known as a physically repellent person. So why on earth would a lower-resolution medium start suddenly revealing flaws that weren’t present on film?

I suspect the people in these articles are just plain full of shit.

Comments | June 12, 2005

And you wonder why there’s no good Mac software

Okay, right, so moving to Intel chips was probably inevitable, given the economics of the thing. Still and all, if you’re a Mac software developer, you’ve got to be getting a bit annoyed. Back around 1995, you had to port all your stuff from Motorola’s 680x0 line to the PowerPC; around 2001, you had to port it all from Mac Classic to OS X; and now you need to port it all from PowerPC to Intel. Meanwhile, those folks selling software for non-Apple computers had to port from Win16 to Win32 back in 1995, and have been sitting pretty with that ever since. Extra side bonus: A software market approximately 50 times larger.

It could be worse, though: They could be making software for Linux.

Comments | June 7, 2005