The Hobbit is out and is one of the first movies to offer a higher framerate than standard movies. There was a bunch of other relatively new tech in the theater. Here’s my review of each piece:
- Higher framerate: Almost every movie you’ve ever seen is in 24 frames per second. That means that 24 individual pictures go by every second and your brain sees it as a moving image. Home video cameras generally shoot video in 30 frames per second which is one reason why your home movies look a little different than movies in the theater. But generally, the more frames you have, the smoother and more realistic the video is going to look. Have you ever noticed how images on a screen get blurry when the camera pans quickly? There are a few reasons, but the low framerate is a big reason. With 48 frames per second, I was consistently impressed with how crisp the image was even when the camera was panning or things were moving quickly on the screen. It did look dramatically different and there is already outrage from some people who claim it “doesn’t look like a movie is supposed to look.” If someone had never seen a movie and you showed them 24fps and 48fps, I’m sure they’d pick 48fps. We’re just used to seeing video that has a little stutter to it and blurry fast action scenes. In 10 years, we’ll all be watching 48fps and wondering why we used to like those old movies. This one will take a while to become mainstream because of the additional production and display costs, but I’m giving it a thumbs up.
- 3D: This was only the second movie I’ve seen in 3D. The first was Avatar. I figured I’d give it another shot with this movie, but I still didn’t like it. When you see a 3D image, your brain assumes it can focus in on any part of the screen. But only part of a 3D movie is in focus and trying to focus on something else will just give you eye strain. Green screen computer graphics effects also look exceedingly fake in a 3D environment to me. I want to see this movie again without 3D as the 3D nature of the movie kept taking me out of the experience. Thumbs down. I won’t write off the technology completely though until I’ve seen sports in 3D. That’s supposed to be the scenario that works very well. But I’m done going to see 3D movies.
- Dolby Atmos: I thought I had blogged about Atmos before, but I can’t find the post so I’ll give you a quick overview. In a normal movie, the sound engineer and the director mix the sound into 5 or 7 separate channels. The sound is fixed to come out of the front right speaker, the rear left speaker, etc. They will also make a stereo 2-channel mix for people at home who don’t have 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setups. The problem is that you’re trying to make it sound good on someone’s TV speakers and in a huge theater. Dolby Atmos changes the way sound engineers work. Instead of saying what speaker a sound should come from, the sound engineer picks a point in a big virtual sphere around the listener and says that’s where a specific sound comes from. When the sound is played back, the playback system takes that point and figures out which of the installed speakers should play it. That means you can use 1 speaker or 1000 and the exact same soundtrack will work. Obviously, the more speakers you have, the more accurate the location where the sound originates will be. This movie was the first time I’d been in a theater with Dolby Atmos and it was my favorite part of the whole experience. The level of sound immersion was incredible. You really have to hear it to believe it. If I could pick just one of the three technologies I’ve mentioned in this post, Dolby Atmos is the one I’d pay extra to experience. The only downside is that this is at least a few years from coming to the home because you’ll need a new A/V receiver and you’ll need content that is mixed in this format. Neither one exist yet and there’s a chicken/egg problem.
Oh and how was the movie? It was good, but not great and that’s how I felt about the book too. If you like Lord of the Rings, you should see it. As with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the movie is about 20 minutes too long, but that’s Jackson’s style and he sticks with it. I’ll see the next two as well, but I might see them at home unless I can find a theater that will do 2D 48fps Dolby Atmos.
If you use a Surface RT, you may have noticed that Flash only works on some sites. There is a whitelist built in and Flash will only work if the website is on that list. But what about sites like studio711.com? If you want to watch the Flash that is used here, you’ll need to do a little extra work. Of course you’ll be doing something that isn’t recommended by Microsoft so proceed at your own risk. Still willing to try it? Follow the steps at 
I’ve made beer twice in my life so I’m an expert and would like to share my learnings with you. It turns out there is a lot more to beer bottle preparation than I knew. When the guys told me to start saving beer bottles, I did what I think most people would do. I kept the old box, rinsed out the bottles when I was done with them and dropped the bottles in right side up. Well what do you think happens when you put a slightly wet bottle in a dark place and leave it for a while? MOLD. It was pretty gross, but luckily they were salvagable. Here’s the process for reusing a beer bottle. 
Tyla and I have had the Surface RT for a few weeks now. I’ve been putting off this review, but I’ll explain that later. First off, the device is great. If you want to step into the world of tablets, I have no trouble recommending this. It’s competitively priced and it has some strong differentiators.
As I headed out the door at 6:30AM on Saturday, the sensors on top of Crystal Mountain were reporting 7 degrees. That’s about what it felt like all day. But the cold was outweighed by bluebird skies and incredible views stretch from Baker to St. Helens. This was my seventh day at Crystal this season but the first that I’ve been able to see Mt. Rainier.
After getting a wisdom tooth ripped out and my sinuses fixed last year, I had hoped that I was done with doctor’s offices for a while. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like that’s going to be the case. Around the end of last year, I saw a dermatologist for a routine skin check. I have lots of moles which puts me in a higher risk category for skin cancer. Without going into unnecessary details, the lab results showed one area that was “severely abnormal.” Yikes. I never thought at the age of 32, I’d be on the phone saying, “Wait… so… do I have cancer?” Thankfully that answer was no, but it was still something that needed immediate action. This is basically the last thing they see before they see skin cancer so they need to cut out a bunch more skin around that area. That’s happening today. I’ll end up with stitches and have to take it easy for a couple weeks. I shouldn’t need to miss any work but it will keep me off the ski slopes for a week or two.
Organized
This post will probably embarrass Tyla, but I need to share the incredible project that she recently completed. When I met her in 2008, she had a LOT of stuff. She wasn’t ready for hoarders, but let’s just say a box of random rocks had been transported more miles than anyone cares to count.
I think a lot of people reach a point where they realize that mental, physical, and monetary burden of having too much stuff is worse than the emotional burden of tossing/selling it. For me, it was some point when I was moving back and forth between Jersey and Minneapolis. Cleaning house was difficult, but it feels incredible to not have tons of junk following me around waiting to be organized. Tyla got to that point around the time I met her. If you ask her, she’ll attribute much of that decision to a book called Clutter’s Last Stand.
So for the last four years, Tyla has been spending random weekends and evenings going through her boxes. She gave some of it to me to scan and photo before throwing away, some of it got donated, some of it got thrown straight into the trash can, and some was important enough to keep. We both wish that we had some way to count the numbers of carloads that I took to Goodwill or the trash cans that got filled up. It would be an astounding visual. In the end, this is what’s left:
I’m so proud of her for finishing this seemingly insurmountable project one box at a time!