Bereninga

October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs passed away. May he rest in peace.

So Apple decided to change up the scrolling behavior in Lion OS X. By default, scrolling works by using two fingers and moving them up or down the on the trackpad, as if you’re moving the document your viewing. Previously, scrolling with the trackpad worked by moving the scrolling the viewport up or down. This is totally an indication that OS X will either be available with a touch screen or it will slowly mend together with iOS to create some hybrid, amazeballs OS. I’m still getting used to three finger gestures.

Edit: After reading this article, you know what, I’m going go agree with the writer and am not going to conform to this ridiculous “natural scrolling”. The trackpad is more representational of the viewport, not of the document we’re currently viewing. It all makes sense to move fingers down to scroll the screen down. We don’t scroll left when we want to scroll right. I also noticed that the scrollbars don’t show up by default until the user starts scrolling. Hm, I’d like to know if there’s more content! I’m going to stick with showing scrollbars always. Thanks, Lion!

I just realized that I do scroll things to the right when I move my fingers left for Spaces. Wow, now I’m really getting confused!

See ya, Carroll Gardens. Although you have amazing restaurants and offered me an elevator, in-building laundry and a garbage chute, I must say good-bye and move into a 3rd floor walk up, with no laundry nor a garbage chute. At least it’ll be ALL MINE!

1. Can I tap the status bar to scroll back to the top of a long list? It’s really annoying when I can’t do that any more.
2. If I’m viewing the app in landscape mode, can I view it in the other landscape view also? The headphone jack and charger port sometimes get in the way. Oh, I can’t? Darn.

I recently watched some episodes of Hoarding: Buried Alive. It’s pretty unbelievable how people can lose touch with reality so easily with a simple habit. I plan to get rid of a bunch of things that I apparently don’t need. Life would be so much easier when you have less things to think about, right?

Sometimes I feel like I’m always trying to find some sort of state of balance, like a routine in life. I like routine because it makes me feel like I’m in more control of my life. Sometimes though life just likes to throw you some curve balls. Normally it’s a few at once, not just one or two. I think that as I get older even the smallest things just add up to so much more.

Sadly, my sister and her family has decided to move to North Carolina. For how long? Who knows. I feel like I should be happy because they’ll get to live the life they want. However, I can’t help but feel sad because I know that I won’t get to see them as often, especially my nieces and nephew. I wish that I had visited home more often to see them.

I think that my parents are probably most sad to see them move away. Of course, my parents will go visit them and my sister and her family will come to visit once in a while. It’s not the same though. My nieces and nephew brought a renewed life and excitement to my parents. Grandchildren have a special place in hearts of grandparents.

Good luck, Valerie and the Studney’s. You’ll be missed very, very much.

Call of Duty Black Ops releases tomorrow. It seems like every time a new Call of Duty is released the video game junkies go crazy. They’re just as ready to line up as the Apple fanboys. I actually feel sorry for people who are Call of Duty and Apple fans. Oh wait, that would be me. Doh!

Anyway, here’s the TV commercial spot. It’s pretty hilairz.

This week Ray Anderson, the NFL’s Executive Vice President of Football Operations, stated that head-to-head hits will be “dealt with a higher level”. After Week 6 of this 2010 season at least 6 players suffered concussions from brutal and vicious hits. Players such as DeSean Jackson, Todd Heap and Mohamed Massaquoi took on collisions that ended up making them leave their respective games, and they probably won’t return for weeks. These hits were unnecessary and any genius can see that these hits were done with the intent to injure. Below are the videos and you can see for yourself:

Now, not all hits are intentional. Some may be by accident, which is a very fine line. There have been mixed feelings about rules on hitting, but player safety is really the objective of elevating the priority of these rules.

First, let’s state the problem. In football certain collisions, which don’t need to be helmet-to-helmet, can cause concussions to players. The New York Times reported a study that showed higher rates of dementia in NFL players:

“… researchers found that 6.1 percent of players age 50 and above reported that they had received a dementia-related diagnosis, five times higher than the cited national average, 1.2 percent. Players ages 30 through 49 showed a rate of 1.9 percent, or 19 times that of the national average, 0.1 percent.”

What causes these collisions to occur? The answers lie in a very gray area.

One cause can be attributed to the nature of the sport. Part of football culture is about the big hits. What people don’t know is that the hits can happen without these dangerous helmet-to-helmet collisions. Football is not meant to be violent; it’s meant to be rough, but violence is not what football is about.

Another cause of these collisions is the helmet concept. In the mid 1940′s, the NFL decided to use hard helmets. Over time, these helmets improved and became more advanced. They were meant for protection. Let me say that again: they were meant for protection. Helmets were not invented to enable players to crash into each other, which is what they appear to be used for today. What used to be protective gear turned into a weapon basically. And some players are more open than others to using them as weapons.

A third cause to dangerous collisions is wrong intention. If you watch the above videos, it’s clear that the players delivering the hits were not going for a tackle. They never had the intention of tackling or going for the ball. They simply hit the receivers head-on. Anyone who has played football knows that the proper way to tackle is to keep your head up, wrap your arms around the other player’s legs, and then move your feet to push the other player down. None of those actions occurred in any of those clips above. It’s especially flagrant in the clip with James Harrison. He launches himself in the air with his head down.

(Also, just because the refs didn’t call penalties doesn’t mean it’s a “clean hit”. If you steal something and you don’t get caught, it’s still stealing.)

Another cause is one that cannot be helped: accidental collisions. How does one determine if a hit is intentional or not? Take a look at the entry of the collision by each player. Did the defender try to wrap? Did the defender launch himself head down into another player?

Finding a solution to improving player safety is complicated but must be addressed. Concussions are the worst type of injuries compared to injuries elsewhere. An interesting take on this was stated by Mike Florio:

As to the question of whether preventing hits to the head will result in more hits to the legs, which could blow out knees, Anderson explained that the league regards injuries resulting from head shots to be potentially “life altering,” whereas hits to the knees are essentially “career altering.”  The league wisely has opted to protect against the former.

This statement is provoking because it’s closer than anything to the truth. The intent to injure has to be stopped. I’ve actually thought of possible solutions, but I’m no expert.

1. Education – Teach players how to tackle the real way and about the effects of concussions to the brain. This is preventative action.
2. Ejection – Eject the offender off the field. This is a huge move and influences the outcome of the game.
3. Suspension – Suspend the player for at least two games. Players love football, and taking away football will really get to them and let them know that they let their team down.
4. Higher fines – These players make millions! Rodney Harrison put away as much as $50k as a buffer to pay for fines before the season. Money doesn’t matter to these players. It’s all about the game, the guts, the glory.
5. Make it a 30 yard penalty – Another way to alter the outcome of a game.

These solutions may seem extreme when put together, but they are fair to me. I feel this way because the brain is a fragile organ. One hit, one moment can change someone’s life forever. Whereas a game only lasts four quarters.

People will still watch football because of the game, not because of the violence. And if you watch for the violence, you’re looking in the wrong place. Football is classier than that. I’ve read on Twitter about people whining that football might as well become flag football and that the NFL has become too soft. The NFL wants to protect their players, and these players get paid to play the game, not to sacrifice their mental livelihoods.

Last week, Apple released a refreshed version of its Apple TV product. First, let’s get a quick run-down of some key changes:

• Netflix streaming
• content moved from local storage in the Apple TV to streaming only
• price changes for Apple TV unit to $99, rentals for HD TV shows for 99 cents, HD movies for $4.99

How thrilling are these changes? Unfortunately, not thrilling at all. Even though these are “new” features to Apple TV, they’re not anything new to anyone who already has a pretty good home entertainment system already. Apple is trying really hard to get Apple TV to be something people need, but it misses the mark.

First, Netflix streaming is old news. The XBox 360, Playstation 3, some Blu-ray players, HDTV sets, and other devices already have Netflix streaming built-in. Netflix as a feature is now just extra for the Apple TV since people who have Netflix most likely already stream it from another device other than their computers. Why would people want to have another piece of hardware to wire up in their system? In fact, if people who don’t have a Netflix-only device and are looking to get one, they can get a cheaper one: the Roku.

Content also is streaming only. So what does that say? That means you’ll never truly own the content you buy. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you should be used to this. If not, you will.

The price point is definitely right. At $99, it’s easy to get Apple TV as an impulse buy as opposed to a bigger financial commitment. HD TV rentals for 99 cents seems pretty good too, but $4.99 for HD movies is a little high. Why would a Netflix subscriber want to pay more money for what they can get on Netflix? If you don’t have Netflix, you’d better watch one movie per month or else pay Apple more money for what you can get on Netflix for the same price. Get my drift?

I don’t see what Apple TV brings new to the table. Perhaps one feature is pretty neat: streaming content from your iPhone or iPad to Apple TV through AirPlay. This allows your device to act as a remote so to speak.

Here’s what the dream Apple TV would have but probably won’t have:

• Blu-ray support
• 1080p streaming
• remote control via iPhone/iPad
• Pandora
• iOS support

Are you going to get an Apple TV? I really would like to know why.