Caught You!: Kymco Scooters

This is a page from the latest Kymco Scooters promotional booklet, about the Sento scooter.  Each page of the booklet has a large cropped image of the scooter on the outside edge of the page — left, in this case — plus a couple smaller colors shots and specs for the vehicle.

Unfortunately, the Sento only has its name on the front left side of the scooter, while this page ended up as a left page, so the front right side would be shown in the large cropped image.

So to fix that, they took the front left side and flipped the image horizontally.  This seems a perfectly reasonable thing to try, except that it reverses all logos, including the main Kymco logo — see the inset on the right — and it would reverse the Sento test logo as well.  So what did they do?  They apparently digitally removed (Photoshopped out) the Sento logo, and then pasted in a new, non-reversed copy.  Except, as seen on the inset on the left, they didn’t get it at quite the right place — it’s too high, not angled right, and of course, the “S” should be closest to the headlight (hard to help that, though).   All in all, a pretty lousy job, probably a rush.

The right answer, of course, would have been to move the Sento to a right hand page in the booklet, so they could have used a correct, unaltered image.  Second best would have been to use a non-flipped image of the side without the Sento logo — so the Kymco logo wouldn’t be flipped and they wouldn’t have to remove the flipped Sento logo — and then just paste in the isolated Sento logo (at the right place and angle, of course).

Ireland: Killarney, Tralee, and the Dingle Peninsula (part 1)

10:40 am, Killarney (at the kitchen table)

Went to the Internet café last night, late, for just 35 minutes.  Barely made a dent in my accumulated e-mail, but made sure the Rain Country folk knew I was alive, and replied to a couple work items.  Then went to the Danny Mann pub to use their wireless, and got through a bunch more e-mail.    Should haven set up the e-mail program while there to just download all my e-mail, to take care of offline, but didn’t think to.  Tried to update QuickTime on the computer, but failed to get a good enough connection.  Looks like I need an XVid codec to view the videos I took on this computer, but the one out there for the Mac won’t run on a G3, so I’m out of luck; I can store them, but not view them except on the little Flip camera.  I’ll have to wait until I get home to do anything more with them.

We’re going north to Tralee and then out on the Dingle Peninsula today, about another 120 miles of driving, it looks like.  No idea what the roads will be like, of course, and thus how fast the trip will be.  It’s also windy and rainy, so it may be a slow trip.

Looks like I’ll finally finish Larry Niven’s The Ringworld Throne today (I actually finished it on Tuesday).  I’ve only been working at it in spurts (when I travel) for a year and some.  Not as good as the previous two novels in the series; doubt I’ll get the fourth one.  I think the plot is scattered; the parts with the vampire slayers and the parts with Louis and Hindmost and company are only sort of intersecting, and there are too many pieces missing from the latter plotline for me to do more than stumble along.  Maybe everything will come together in the final 40-50 pages, but I’m not confident that it will be a satisfying conclusion.  And then I can get back to the second half of Peter David’s latest Star Trek novel, Before Dishonor, also lain fallow for a couple months.

Use an iPod and DIE!!!!!!!!

Well, that's the thrust of this article at CNN.com from July 12, 2007 (from the AP, uncredited):

Experts warn of lightning-strike injuries with iPods

No telling how long the link will be good for, so here's a summary:

Two people have been outside during storms and had nearby lightning strikes jump to their iPods.  Doctors say beepers, Walkmans, and laptops can result in the same thing, and a guy who was struck by lightning while playing golf tracks such strikes on his websites, recording 13 strikes on cell phones in the past three years.  Even coins in the pocket can be targets.  Damage from these strikes can include burn and ruptured eardrums, and the damage can even be passed to someone standing next to you.

And most important, but buried in the middle of the story:

Contrary to some urban legends and media reports, electronic devices don't attract lightning the way a tall tree or a lightning rod does.

In other words, two — count them, two! — people have had lightning strikes jump to their iPods, and many times that many have been struck doing other activities and with other devices, but we’re going to spread fear and panic by invoking “iPod” in the headline.

Someone’s an Apple hater.  The parallel would be a headline saying "Windows systems vulnerable when lighting strikes a building"… which they are, but no more than any other computer.  But hey, there are more of them, so it’s fine, right?

Movie Review: Ratatouille

We went to see Ratatouille last night.  I had hoped to see Hairspray instead, but it was opening day and we were running late, so the first choice was sold out.  No biggie, and I wanted to see this, anyway.

Ratatouille is probably the most adult-themed computer animated film to come out of the Hollywood studios yet.  With its themes of life in the big city, getting and keeping a job, running a restaurant, and getting along with your peers, and especially with its mostly human (ahem) cast, it was a step away from the likes of Shrek and Toy Story.   No musical song-and-dance numbers, and not a screaming amount of bwa-ha-ha! funny moments.

In fact, it was because of the more adult nature of much of the film that the kid-friendly (read: “people who want kids to learn a lesson while being entertained”-friendly) bits sang out as over the top and too intense.  “Family is important” and “you don’t have to steal to be successful” were wedged in throughout the film way too obviously, as though Gusteau’s neon sign were lighting them up.

I was reminded once again (as I was after recently watching the DVD extras on Shrek II) just how good a job they have done with these computer animated cartoons.  We just don’t notice a lot of the subtle stuff they do simply because they do it right.   Think about it with this, a film about cooking: steam rising, ingredients plopping into liquids of various viscosities, reflections off highly polishes pots and utensils — all done so well that they don’t even register as “fake” (computer animated).  That is the mark of incredible skill and technology — magic.

I was also struck by the idea that this is where superhero films should go next.  The Incredibles already led the way, of course, but it was with their own characters, whom none of the audience are especially invested in.   Think about a computer animated version of Spider-Man or Dr. Strange or the Legion of Super-Heroes.  Designs which have a strong rooting in the comics, realistic enough to work but not all the way into the freak “uncanny valley”.  The ability to do whatever effects you need without having to integrate them with the live actors.  No stunt men, no mega-miniatures.  The time is right.