simonb.com: blog > articles from February, 2010

This is a shot of the ashes of the money we burned as offerings at the start of the new year. It looks like it's been through a grey scale filter but this is what it looked like up close. There's a little bit of colour in there if you look closely in the middle.

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About a year ago I had one of my front teeth pulled. Today I got an implant and stitches (see above) that will be crowed in 4 - 6 months. (If all goes as hoped.) Then I should be able to smile again. Long story. Too groggy to get into it now.

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Last night, at my local DVD store, I purchased a Blu-ray disc for RMB 80 (USD 12). The same disc on Amazon costs USD 17.50 (down from USD 35). It is safe to assume, just like every other title in the shop, it is a fake. When Blu-ray was introduced there was doubt as to its viability due to the rise of Internet delivery and competition from HD-DVD. But the appearance of fake discs means Blu-ray has arrived as a standard. It must be viable because there is a big enough market for pirates to be shipping discs. Therefore, I…

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Remember the Plaza 66 Christmas decorations? In a tremendous effort of re-cycling for the new year they got a colour upgrade to red.

At the other end of the mall...

Loads-a-money.

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I was walking through Shanghai Centre the other day and happened upon the scene above. Chefs from the Portman making offerings at the beginning of the Lunar new year.

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Some time early this morning it snowed in Shanghai.

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As I wrote yesterday I don't miss consuming UK media very much. Bizarrely and very meta-ly, some of the UK media I do listen to is about... media. Media podcasts. Media Talk from the Guardian and The Media Show from BBC Radio. Both available to me as free podcasts. Both highly recommended and appreciated. I can also listen to real-time streamed radio from all the UK stations. Audio it seems can cross borders with ease.

Which brings me on to the BBC iPlayer. Or as I like to call it the "Not available in your area". One has to be…

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John Graham-Cumming has a blog entitled A year without TV. I know how he feels. I moved to Asia in 1997 so I've had 13 years with close to zero TV. I also don't miss it. The few channels we can get are mostly international news channels (CNN, BBC, CNBC etc.). A constant looping source of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) meant to be watched in 20 minute chunks. TV fast food.

When I initially moved here there wasn't the great variety of video available on the web that there is now. But cheap DVDs have always been here.…

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Robin: Flash is not on the iPad
Batman: You fool!

Made with the Batman Comic Generator

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Adobe have posted a blog "explaining" why Flash can not be made open source:

"The main reason we can't release Flash Player as open source is because there is technology in the Player that we don't own, such as the industry standard hi-def video codec, H.264."

This is, of course, complete BS. Have they never heard of libraries? Just release the bits you can and let the open source world plug the video decoder hole with ffmpeg. Perhaps the real reason is that, these days, most of the use for Flash on the web is nothing more than a…

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