The collected works of ScottyB

As any of you who follow this collected works will know, I’ve recently moved up to 8mbps. Or the 21st century as some of our overseas friends will say.

They say Australia is behind in the Internet game - and sure - its probably true; Even our supreme ADSL2+ pales in comparison to connection speeds on offer in the US and parts of Europe. However, as I started downloading a pack of photos from last weekend’s GP and watched it almost immediately shoot to 250 kb/s, while also viewing some of those ‘crazy Arab drift’ videos on YouTube and scanning the forums for new posts, I realised I was in near electronic bliss.

Minutes later, my download finished. Something I’d usually have to have waited up to half an hour to view - was done in 4 minutes and 43 seconds.

It’s hard not to be impressed, even if we’re still miles behind in the numbers game.

I guess the only downside to this whole dilemma is being chucked back into the world of download limits. For much of my Internet life, I’ve managed to steer clear of these download cap plans. I’d heard stories and had mates who had racked up many-hundred dollar excess bills for their parents to pay off. It was just too risky a proposition. And nowadays, parents won’t foot the bill either - it all comes out of my DVD-taunted, petrol-ravaged, techno-freaked wallet.

Thanks to the Layer 2 changeover, there is no other option. Well - except for the 40GB plan, which kind of looks like it may be the logical option, seeing as about a week into 8mbps, I’ve already racked up 9GB of transfer out of my 18GB on offer before throttling.

It’s not entirely my fault though. Everything downloads faster. So you can download other stuff much earlier than you used to be able to. And that downloads faster too. Visit a website loaded with pictures - they’ve all downloaded before you realise its the wrong page and you go up to click ‘Stop’ to save bandwidth.. but its already greyed out. I don’t even bother trying to click ’stop’ any more.

The biggest advantage though, is not having to wait. The time I used to waste, just waiting for a new movie trailer to load, or a video-driver update to download.. now all done in a fraction of the time.

It really is like the switch from dial-up to 512k broadband back in early 2002.

This is the Internet as it was intended to be viewed.

Yes. That’s right folks.

300.

Tin box set - Collectors Edition. 2-discs. Plus the bonus exclusive booklet, ‘300: The Art of the Film’.

The exact same one I was sooooo very disappointed about last week, when I checked the EzyDVD website and noticed the big RED ‘Sold Out’ next to it.

It was in store today - and the relief washed over me in an awesome wave (to quote Patrick Bateman).

Yeah I know, I’m crazy for getting so excited about a DVD - but I simply love film. And the only thing better than the film itself is buying the film - with cool bonus features, exclusive collectors packs - stuff you don’t find elsewhere.

I guess that’s the attraction of EzyDVD - these tin box sets and exclusive packs. It even makes the UK’ers jealous!

To top it all off, the pricing is extremely good. At the sale today, I picked up some virtual new releases - Blood Diamond and The Departed - for under $10. Jarhead and 16 Blocks for under $13.

I’m kind of glad they don’t run these sales all the time. I’m far too encourageable. I’d buy the shop out of stock in one foul swoop.

Some great watching to be had…

Spotted the trailer for this film tonight.

And for an animated flick, it looks stunning.

I can still remember the days of ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within‘ and being uber-impressed by the masterful rendering of Dr. Aki Ross’ eye at the beginning.. the smooth, human-like movements of the other characters.

As technology marches on, everything gets more impressive. More fluid. And you look back at groundbreaking films and think ‘Gee, that was pretty basic stuff’.

Beowulf (2007) stars Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Alison Lohman - but instead of just lending vocal talent to this sort of film, they lend aesthetic talent to it also.

Each of the main characters rendered to look like their worldly counterpart. So we see Hopkins as a King, Jolie as a semi-naked succubus-looking creature.

Make sure you check the trailer out. Awesome stuff…

Link: Beowulf Official Site

22 cars and drivers, 11 teams. Founded in 1946. International, worldwide coverage. 17 races. Billions of dollars invested. Countless people in its entourage.

Formula One, the World’s most prestigious motorsport event.

And sometimes, the most confusing.

I guess for any corporation to be as big as F1 is, its going to encounter problems from time-to-time. With so many people involved, its inevitable that now-and-again they aren’t all going to see eye-to-eye. It’s part of massive success on a global scale. Mo’ money equals mo’ problems.

But when the racing starts getting decided off the track, surely someone has to step back, take a look and say ‘Whoa.. something is not quite right here’.. surely?

The shenanigans of the F1 spy row involving Ferrari and McLaren have consumed the news of late - even to the point of overshadowing the racing. I remember logging onto the major F1 news sites and seeing interviews with the drivers. Testing results between races. Drivers talking up opportunity, change of teams. What they liked to do in their spare time. Now all that seems to make headlines is ‘McLaren in possession of Ferrari documents’ or ‘Alonso hates Hamilton’.

F1 has become a tabloid. Inevitably, the media has taken over the sport and turned it into its creative fan-fiction.

And its just not as enjoyable. I find myself following other race series, other passions in between races, rather than reading the F1 news articles. I grab some photos, new wallpapers after the race - but I don’t get to watch the race.

I popped on to check the results of Qualifying from the Hungarian round on Saturday night. Every forum was touting Fernando Alonso as evil, the devil, a bad sport… a cheat. Not a single soul had posted the results on any of the four forums I looked at - all were hellbent on tarring and feathering Alonso. I had to visit F1.com - the only site to have the results listed immediately.

Alonso it seems, had ‘blocked’ Hamilton during the last round of pit stops, and as a result, Hamilton was unable to complete his final qualifying run. I wondered why a double-world champ would do that. There had to be something else - an ulterior motive surely… surely?

The facts trickled in over the next few hours - but the damage had been done.

The stewards took over, Alonso was demoted from pole position and would start further down the order. And McLaren would be ineligible to score any Constructors points regardless of results in the race.

While I see it as a gross over-reaction, something that should have been dealt with amongst the team - particularly as there is no rule attributing blocking in the pit lane or stating how long a driver may - or may not remain in his pit, but the global view was not so and thus, the race was decided before it even began.

Sure - its not all bad. It’s the closest Championship we’ve had in years. Two teams and four great drivers all with great chances of winning the series. And we’ve had some utterly historic races too, like the European round at the ‘Ring.

Even so, I feel we are truly in uncharted territory regarding the ’sport’ in Motorsport.

Hungarian GP - Winners and Losers (PlanetF1)

A very interesting read…

‘Cause I tell you Jerry… At that moment… I was a Marine Biologist.

The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.

Ahh, all this and more.

9 seasons, 180 episodes. Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander. Arguably the best sitcom of all time. Certainly my favourite.

So it stands to reason I should own it all surely?

The Seinfeld Collection (33 Disc Box Set)

Exactly what I’ve been waiting for all this time..

The sales were on and naturally, I had to be there.

Already some of the freshest new releases have seen price drops. I managed to pick up The Black Dahlia and Harsh Times for $15 - much healthier than their $30 price tags of the week before.

I still wonder why they don’t just release DVD’s at $15. They come down to the middle price bracket after a few weeks anyway - and if they were $15, I’d buy everything as soon as it came out!

Among the bargain bin items was a double-pack.. Devil in a Blue Dress and the Bone Collector - and The Negotiator, both of which I picked up for under $10.

The Negotiator (1998) was truly a surprise - a great film. I’d seen it years ago, on television from memory (back when I still watched TV :P) and I remember it being a good watch, but forgot how truly polished and intense it was.

Great performances by Samuel L. Jackson and one of my favourite actors; Kevin Spacey.

Also on the movie viewing list this weekend:

Enemy At The Gates (2001).

How I missed this one I’ll never know. It came up just recently in a related search as I was hunting around for the release date of Mark Wahlberg’s sniper flick, Shooter.

Having never heard of it, but reading the synopsis, I was compelled to see it - and after not being able to pick it up as a hire item, I purchased it last weekend.

There are some sensational new releases out lately, but I’m really realising how many brilliant films I’ve missed over the years too. Such is the life of a film enthusiast, always happening upon new old films.

New weekend will mark a big sale weekend. Not to mention the release of 300 on DVD. I can see myself spending a few bucks come Saturday.

But I can’t complain.

In addition to the extended trailer of Iron Man, shown at the Comic Con, Iron Man frenzy is already hitting the streets. Collectables appearing everywhere as the May, 2008 release date gets ever more quickly near.

Limited Edition (550 units) of the Iron Man ‘Marvel Legendary Scale Bust collection’ have appeared on my favourite drool website, collectoybles.com.au and the new avenger series Iron Man Statue is a slightly more (cost) realistic option..

Hmmm.. decisions, decisions.

Problem with that is, I’d buy one then want the entire collection. And when they all look incredibly awesome - Wolverine for example:

It’s another of those dangerous prospects…

*Mental note*… Win Lotto.

What is it about a new toy that has you completely pre-occupied with an activity completely unrelated to an actual job description?

Right now, I feel strangely compelled to shred some paper in the new office paper shredder. It sits in the corner of the room, its shiny black carapace sheathing a wicked row of serrated, shiny, silver blades.

Like the teeth of a Great White Shark, they reveal themselves when you sentence a sheet of paper to its death. They fire into action and slice the paper into narrow lengths of rubbish, packing to be used on the next outward-bound shipment. Mere piles of nothing, barely resembling the regal, alabaster quality they once possessed. Crumpled in the bottom of the collection bin, feeling truly and utterly sorry for itself.

You almost feel for it. Until you realise it is just paper - and enthusiastically run the next sheet through.

The journey of the paper is a long one.

Workers on a special tree farm somewhere harvested the lucky tree, chosen for its ability to bear paper. The log would have been carefully transported to the paper company (in this case - Reflex) where the tree was lovingly given a bath to rinse away the dirt and other impurities before being run through a debarker (and the cuts of bark subsequently burned) and then - ironically - a large chipper, turning the log into small chips of wood.

Carefully, the chips would have been sorted according to size, and moved to the pulping operation, where they could be turned into pulp. In the pulping stage, the individual wood fibers in the chips must be separated from one another. This is accomplished with a ‘digester’. And is assisted by many chemicals, many of which I can’t pronounce.

The finished pulp looks like a mushy, watery solution.

Next, our generous tree, giving its life so we can write, has to have its pulp converted into the dry, flat, paper form we are more familiar with. After all, it would be very difficult writing on a mass of wet, claggy, paste. We would need to completely re-think our writing tools as well as how we handle paper and transport it. Really, leaving it in the pulp state is quite the logistical nightmare.

So all this means that the water has to be extracted from the wood-soup. And this occurs in the wet end of the papermaking machines.

The solution is sprayed onto a long, wide screen, called a wire. Thanks to gravity, a lot of the water begins to drain out the bottom of the wire. Meanwhile, the pulp fibers are caught on the top side of the wire, and begin to bond together in a very thin mat. The fiber mat remaining on the wire is then squeezed between felt-covered press rollers to absorb more of the water.

Even when this wet end work is over, the pulpy stuff on the wire is still about 60% water. But then, the paper moves onto the dry end.

In the dry end, huge metal cylinders are heated by filling them with steam. The wet paper, which can be up to 30 feet wide, passes through these hot rollers - sometimes dozens of them, and often in three to five groups. Heating and drying the wet sheet seals the fibers closer and closer together, turning them gradually from pulp into paper.

A paper machine called the ‘calender’ - big, heavy cast iron rollers - press the drying paper smooth and uniform in thickness, allowing it to be packed neatly into the 500-ream packs we are familiar with.

Sometimes the paper is coated, often with fine clay, to make it glossier and easier to print on. After a bit more drying, it is rolled onto a big spool and cut, to be transported to our local outlets, for purchase.

Which brings us to my office. Where I’ve been picking up a copy of an old invoice and shredding it into pieces.

The sound of the whirring blades is infectious. Everyone in the office has been looking for old scrap paper, old brochures that are outdated, invoices that are long since processed, scrap envelopes ready for recycle. And shredding them. At one stage, the boss even decided to see how many pieces of paper would go through the shredder at once - so promptly threw the entirety of an old magazine through it.

Now please excuse me while I scavenge the old newspapers from the shop next door…

Link: Reflex Paper
Link: Paper-Making