Video recording, sony-style

How pretty is this little beauty? The SONY DCR-SR42.

The skinny from the NY Times:

The DCR-SR42, available now at www.sonystyle.com and from electronics retailers, is the 30-gigabyte version and sells for less than $600. Despite the large amount of disk space, the SR42 is compact and weighs only 11 ounces.
Sony says the hard drive can hold 20 hours of video if you shoot at the lowest resolution. At the highest quality, that drops to 7 hours. The supplied battery lets you shoot continuously for just over an hour and a half, while an optional lithium-ion battery ($160) will last up to 10 hours.

This is the "low end" model. Take a look at all available harddisk camcorder models at sonystyle.com.

Artoo-Detoo, where are you??

That is the question Chris and i sought to answer (he'll say mainly me, but he's just insecure about admitting the truth)—where in Chinatown was R2-D2?

R2-D2?? Yes, R2-D2. to help celebrate STAR WARS' 30th year anniversary, the USPS has dressed up some mail boxes as R2 (and is also planning to release some commemorative stamps).

so, Wednesday of last week, we ventured to the corner of Bayard and Mott in Chinatown, and there he (yes, i'm referring to R2-D2 with the pronoun "he") was! i'm not sure what was stranger, the fact that we had to look around before spotting him, or the fact that he was actually there.

what definitely was strange was how everyone else barely noticed him. as if he fit in perfectly next to the Chinatown souvenir shop and across from the Häagen-Dazs.

to be fair, here's Chris' account of our journey.

New York, NY 10021

A little social-welfare piece for those who've fared well socially: An Elite ZIP Code Becomes Harder to Crack (NYTimes)

For those less familiar with NY's social hierarchy, 10021 is the zip code of NY's Upper East Side (UES). It now runs roughly from East 60th Street up to East 80th Street. It has long been a sought-after zip code (the wealthy have different concerns than you or i), although in recent times, many of the upper-crust have been reported to have ventured away from the UES, especially to the West Village.

The people getting screwed over, um, reassigned will fall into one of two categories. The new breakdown for the old 10021 is as follows:

• 10065 - 60th to south side of 69th Street (from Fifth Ave to East River)
• 10021 - north side of 69th Street to south side of East 76th Street
• 10075 - south side of East 76th Street to East 80th Street

Kinda sucks for those on the south side of 69th and the north side of 76th. It's like the "wrong side of the tracks" for rich people. I wonder if a notable difference in value will emerge because of this change.

My personal favorite zip code I ever had was for a brief 3 months while interning in NY. Living at 34th and 6th Ave gave me the very awesome zip code of 10001. Awesome, right? (is that a "who cares?" i hear?)

Lastly, what about the kids? I remember being confused enough about why zip codes existed when I was a kid. Good thing they never changed mine on me while still living in the same place...

Europe looking to adopt a Big Brother

Yes, most of us are aware that, to a degree, our technology-driven lives are being tracked. The whose and whats of credit card purchases, cell phone calls, and web browsing can paint a startling picture of a person, and definitely raises privacy concerns. But when government look to pass legislation to assure themselves of the ability to do these things—Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use (NYTimes)—it all becomes even more disconcerting:

European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people’s Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.

In Germany, a proposal from the Ministry of Justice would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal.

A draft law in the Netherlands would likewise go further than the European Union requires, in this case by requiring phone companies to save records of a caller’s precise location during an entire mobile phone conversation.

Even now, Internet service providers in Europe divulge customer information — which they normally keep on hand for about three months, for billing purposes — to police officials with legally valid orders on a routine basis, said Peter Fleischer, the Paris-based European privacy counsel for Google. The data concerns how the communication was sent and by whom but not its content.

Not only would such Internet laws be unefforcable, as Mr. Fleischer points out in the article, but in the event they somehow did, the end result would just be decentralizing the Internet (which almost always really refers to just the "World Wide Web") into privatized or underground internets. I can't see how that's a good thing.

What is it exactly that governments aim to do by monitoring people? Catch terrorists? Solve murder mysteries? Perhaps noble goals, but not the right means.

DAVID LEE!

it's been interesting times lately in terms of players i like actually doing what i want. i've liked d-wade since his rookie season because of his apparent no-nonsense hard-working attitude. usually when i like a player (or a team, i.e.—the knicks), they end up sucking. so in last year's playoffs, imagine my delight when Wade leads his team to a finals victory.

i know there are many that disagree, but i'm happy that Brett Favre is returning to the Pack. yes, he's past his prime, but i've never been one for the storybook ending crap. i'm never one to want to leave anything left on the table. i'd rather know for sure i've played past my prime, than to leave wondering "what if." Favre is still very capable of being an integral part of a winning championship team (John Elway comes to mind, since they beat the Pack back in '98 when he was 38 years of age). i think if you are past your prime and go out on top as a champion, then it's much more of a no-brainer than quitting while you still have substantial game left and you're still one of the top players in your position in the league.

and that brings me to the catalyst for this post. David Lee. since last season i've grown to become a big fan of Lee. he always gives 100% and often surprises you with his level of play. perhaps it's because he gets zero hype as the Knicks' lone white dude (or for just being a white dude in the NBA). but he definitely has great talent and skills. he's been getting much credit this season around the league, and reached a new high this weekend during the All-Star Rookie-Sophomore game when Lee doesn't miss from floor; sophomores drill rookies (ESPN). Lee went a perfect 14-14 to lead the sophs with 30 points. Although most were dunks or lay-ins, he didn't always go for the safest shots, notably with a windmill jam and a jumping-turnaround-lay-in off a pass that he caught mid-air.

i'm hoping that Lee remains a knick for the rest of his playing days. it's refreshing to have a knick who plays 100%, doesn't have an overbearing ego, and delivers consistently. and as many are talking about, with Lee and (Eddie) Curry both being very young still, the knicks have a positive outlook for the near and far future. one can hope...

Sampras/Agassi

stealing an article from chris' blog, but with a different focus—Pete and Andre are friends: Q&A: Pete Sampras

SI: How often do you talk to Andre Agassi?
Sampras: I talked to him a little after the U.S. Open. He invited my wife and me to his foundation dinner so we went and talked and hung out. We promised each other we would stay in touch. I think we have been through too much together and do get along quite well. We both have a wife and two kids. We have a lot in common at this stage in our lives.
SI: Would you describe you and Agassi as friends today?
Sampras: I would. Not anything where we stay in touch week to week, but if he were ever in L.A. or I were in Las Vegas, I think we would reach out to one another just to get together or have our kids play. The great thing that happened with us is that everything we went through, completing for major titles, I think we came out better friends than when we went into it. It's a credit to who we are and what we represent.

How cool is that? Sampras and Agassi's kids playing together.

"My daddy ALWAYS kicked your daddy's ass."
"NUH UH!"

How long 'til they're competing against each other on the juniors circuit?

All your genes (will soon) belong to someone else

Michael Crichton sheds some light on a real screw up by the US Patent Office in a NYTimes op piece: Patenting Life.

You can’t patent snow, eagles or gravity, and you shouldn’t be able to patent genes, either. Yet by now one-fifth of the genes in your body are privately owned.

how crazy is this? how ABSURD is this? not only that, it is even more wrong when people make a profit at the expense of people trying to fight diseases:

Gene patents are now used to halt research, prevent medical testing and keep vital information from you and your doctor. Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: a test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000.

Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldn’t somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitor’s test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can’t even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but it’s now private property.

...

Fortunately, two congressmen want to make the full benefit of the decoded genome available to us all. Last Friday, Xavier Becerra, a Democrat of California, and Dave Weldon, a Republican of Florida, sponsored the Genomic Research and Accessibility Act, to ban the practice of patenting genes found in nature. Mr. Becerra has been careful to say the bill does not hamper invention, but rather promotes it. He’s right. This bill will fuel innovation, and return our common genetic heritage to us. It deserves our support.

so with that, i wish you a happy valentine's day. i'd give you my heart, but Big Business owns the patent.