Category Archives: my golf

Golf and Computers, golf computers, golf philosophy, Golfist Cinema, Golfist Wintertime Diversions, my golf, Naturalism , , , , , 2 Comments

I F$#@ing Hate the Social Network, That’s Why You Have to Watch It

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I fucking hate The Social Network. Not because it’s a bad movie -it’s very good and you should see it. The reason I hate it is it’s too good. During the entire first half hour, I felt like I was in one of my recurring stress dreams where I’m back at Harvard. In this dream, I am walking into Memorial Hall and sitting down with a stack of empty blue books, and I have three hours to answer questions that I know nothing about in a language that I cannot understand. < shudder >

Most of the first act was shot at Harvard, and the House dorms looked about the same as they did over twenty years ago.  What was more ingenious was the portrayal of undergraduate life there which was spot on. With those pictures rushed back the anxiety over social status, ethnicity, money, and the general envy and dismay towards all the Winklevosses who were there and above all of us. Hooray for Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin. They have changed the world.

Everyone who agrees, just poke me.

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Golfshot- Golf GPS and Golfplan -a belated review

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Wakonda #2 from the tee

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The distance from the tee to mid green with about 20 feet of elevation -an 8 iron

Several years ago, after I got my first iPhone, among the first and most useful programs was View Ti Golf, which I reviewed a while back. It was after several overly confusing updates and broken functionality, that I stopped using View Ti, and moved to Golfshot GPS.

While I had meant to review Golfshot GPS, I was too busy actually using it to put a good review together -I did comment on it a couple of years ago, but it is the addition of analytics and instruction from Paul Azinger via Golfplan that make this sing.

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What they achieved is they’ve simplified the geekiest part of tracking statistics. The simplest method has always been keeping track of Fairways, GIR, Strokes from 150 yards, and Putts on a score card. Golfshot has made it even simpler by making the input of strokes, fairways, and putts, along with sand and penalty strokes mere flips of menu dials.

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You can use the program solely for getting distances on all the golf courses in the US (and supposedly the planet). This will cost you 29.99. There is a lite version for free which offers scoring and the analytics. To tell you the truth, the GPS is nice, but I try to set up my shots with sight and local knowledge -its the statistics which make it worth using this program.

All the data is stored in the cloud and so you can use this app on multiple devices even on a GPS-less ipod touch or Wifi-iPad. The program works very well on Android as well (though readers of this blog know my feelings about Android).

The scorecard shows the parts of the game that I have to concentrate on -GIR -meaning my mid irons to pitching wedge, and sand -avoiding them and getting out of them.

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The complementary half of this is Golfplan which is currently at a promotional price of 0.99. Mr. Azinger is a great communicator and passes along in 1 to 2 minute videos perfectly executable knowledge to the average golfer. I think the best results can be had for the advanced beginner to 10 handicapper and this appears to be the target audience.

The stats are analyzed and a customized lesson plan is created for drills and instructions. Given the cost of private golf lessons, this is beyond cheap at just under a buck.
The problem with golf instruction is that most golfers take a band aid approach to lessons -thinking one or two lessons to straighten out the ball is enough.

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That’s like going to the doctor once to start treatment for a serious condition and then treating it yourself. Finding a good professional isn’t hard -every golf course has a PGA professional dedicated to improving play. It’s committing to a series of lessons over years that is tough -in terms of time and cash.
Gofshot GPS and Golfplan both get 4.5 stars on the App store which is basically a perfect score. I agree and outside of signing on with a golf instructor for a year’s worth of weekly lessons, this is the best thing since sliced cheese. I will update everyone on my progress.

Sent from my iPad

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Olympus XZ-1 Personal Review

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One of my growing hobbies has been photography. In particular, I love taking landscape shots of golf courses and at work, I need tight macro shots of operations. While one of my good friends swears by his Canon Mark 5D, I can’t see myself carrying a second man purse of camera and lenses like he does to capture shots around New York City. That said, even the micro 4/3rd cameras despite their size, demands cases because their lenses protrude.

The primary appeal of interchangeable lens cameras is versatility and quality with regard to image sensor, control, and lenses. Most compact cameras -even high end prosumer compacts, make compromises for broad appeal. In particular, lens speed -the ability to open the aperture wide to let in the most amount of light, is in inverse proportion to zoom which has broader appeal. The beauty of high quality portraits and cinema is that the lens focuses on a narrow plane leaving foreground and background slightly blurred. The ability to do this indoors is limited by lens speed -and flash ruins pictures.

The most popular configuration of micro 4/3rds cameras is buying the body and a 20mm Panasonic “pancake” lens which is rated at F1.8 which is a very fast lens speed. By using old fashioned zoom (by stepping forward and backward), this lens allows for excellent low light photography while also allowing for beautiful landscape shooting. It’s also relatively pricey, as I would be paying extra for an option (the ability to change lenses) that I would not use.

The Canon S-95 has been edging towards these specs, but having the older generation G9, I have come to think that Canon really dumbs down their consumer level products as much as their professional products are excellent. My iPhone camera (which took the above picture) takes as good a picture.

The XZ-1 which just shipped from Amazon (which strangely got it a month later than other retailers) fits my needs. It has a very fast lens with the same F1.8 lens speeds as the popular Panasonic pancake 20mm lens. The offered presets work very well, but the manual settings and the physical ergonomics of the camera and the bright OLED screen make the camera sing.

This snapshot shows the camera’s abilities in the hands of a novice. The worst kind of shots for consumer cameras are indoor shots facing a strong source of light. The camera adjusted and produced this image to the right.

The screen is OLED and very bright. That said, I am considering getting the Olympus viewfinder which gets very high reviews (not like the Panasonic viewfinder which gets middling reviews). The viewfinder would fit in the flashes hotshoe.

I have not taken any flash shots and have found that by increasing the ASA, keeping the f stop to 1.8, and holding the camera still, all indoor shots that are visible to the human eye can be taken with good quality with this camera.

The autofocus is very fast, but also touchy, particularly when something is moving and out of the foreground. I haven’t read the manual (I never do) but the camera does allow you to select the region of focus, or to manually focus the lens.

I did purchase a 16GB SDHC card for it -this allows ample space to park the HD video that the camera shoots. Compared to prior video I’ve shot, I feel like I am carrying movie camera. The subject focuses nicely with the background blurring dramatically -this is the benefit of the high quality lens. I don’t see the point of purchasing dedicated movie cameras for most people except for serious videographers.

The battery life is excellent -it shows full bars despite taking about 100 shots and several video clips. I purchased an extra battery for it but expect that it won’t be needed much unless I’m going for long adventures away from a power source.

My comment earlier about the unnecessary flash touches on something I’ve wanted for years in a digital camera. The instant gratification of digital trumped many of the features of film except for the quality of the pictures which could not match those taken years ago with a manual SLR and a fast lens. While it was obvious that you could get this with DSLR’s, the bulk and hassle of carrying camera gear negates any of the fun for me. This almost fits in my pants pocket, definitely in a jacket pocket, and gives you images that match the most important camera -your eye. It is the camera that you have that is the best camera, and this camera is one that I can always have on me (aside from my iPhone).

Update 4-12-2011
The camera absolutely needs a sleeve for the laptop bag as the lens cap comes off too easily. Video is poor -don’t get this camera for the video. Its primary problem is there is an unstable time delay between focus detection and focus motors which for stills is very fast but for video, it can get caught in a spastic focus loop focusing on some foreground object then to the back and vice versa. I hope they fix this with a firmware upgrade. I really should read the manual. The stills, particularly the landscapes and the portraits are superb. Battery life is incredible.

Update 7-26-2011

Got the viewfinder -incredible quality images through it. Will update this review.

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Sunrise, Sunset

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The one thing I want to know during golf season is the hours of sunlight that I have available for play. The Chronometer app available on the iTunes App Store fills this need well. The application offers a variety of virtual watches with a wonderment of complications that at first seem toylike but are really useful. The Haleakala watch gives you the sunrise and sunset times of your location along with the sun and moon azimuths which are useful for navigating the Santa Maria to Cathay. For the avid golfer, twilight on both ends of the day is enough light to play.

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Swing 2011 v1.0

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The winter is ebbing and spring’s arrival is a bird’s song chirping behind the grey fences of March. This is when my golf ambitions begin to rise, and I’m back in the golf hut for a another season’s preparation. My swing is much better than it was several years ago when I began this blog, but the real barrier to lowering my handicap was never ball striking, but rather the short grass and the grey matter. I’ve studied books on mind-spirit-action-golf, taken lessons from great masters of the game, and have electronically tracked and analyzed every aspect of my game. This year, I’m just going to go at it with just me, the sticks, and the tiny white ball. What’s promising about this approach -dumping several 15 footers for par over a weekend in a warmer part of our country a while back and managing my game for 2-3 strokes onto the green with twenty year old clubs that weren’t my own -my first round since last fall with no warmup or practice from the tips on an unfamiliar and challenging course I shot a 96 with three triple bogies. Just swing.

 

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Lady Gaga is …Meadow Soprano!

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I watched network television for the first time in years on Grammy night. In the lead up to the show, I caught the Anderson Cooper interview of Lady Gaga. I have been a big fan since her first album, and have always thought that her music was the thinking man’s pop music. Cooper notes in his interview that Gaga never looks the same twice, and it is true. Watching her music videos, not only her costumes change but her look changes, many times in the same video.

Gaga complained in the interview that photographers are always asking for her to show her real self. Without any irony, she points out she is sitting in lingerie with just eyeliner on for Cooper, and even here, it’s hard to see what she really looks like. She has perfected the mask of fame. What we really yearn for is a kind of candid Gaga photo of her sitting in a pink polo shirt and Bermudas drinking a gin and tonic with just some

minimal eye liner, natural lighting – something to connect her to our mundane self. She understands this and studiously avoids ever assuming she is off camera.

So we have to go to the source. Youtube only hints at her underlying self, and what comes out is a basically attractive young Italian-American woman (right) who went to private Catholic school and NYU.It is very hard to link this picture with the mostly nude pop superstar being interviewed by Cooper, but then a light went off.

In this season of golf senescence, I had taken to watching the whole of The Sopranos from Netflix, and the truth came to me. Gaga is Meadow Soprano (Jamie-Lynn Sigler, to left).  The face, the complexion, the eyes, all line up. It’s as if Meadow, instead of pursuing law, decided to go into performance art. Even more surprisingly, the internet rumor is that a young Stephanie Germanotta is has a cameo appearance as a high school girl watching Anthony, Jr., swimming in the 3rd Season episode, The Telltale Moozadell. 

Gaga takes these underlying bones and transforms herself with not only her masquerade and costume parade, but had some transformational moment where she decided she would no longer be just Stephanie Germanotta, NYU coed with a lot of fallback plans.

That was the question Cooper failed to ask.

 

Addendum:

I was watching the episode and found her -she is indeed in the scene as one of the girls on the bleacher smoking cigarettes and eating pizza while Anthony Jr., and a bunch of boys vandalize the school pool.

She enters the scene and it’s hard to tell if it really is Stephanie Germanotta, but as the camera pans away from her, you see Gaga revealed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golf and Computers, golf computers, golf equipment, golf instruction, golf philosophy, Golfist Wintertime Diversions, My Bidness, my golf, Naturalism , , , , , , 1 Comment

Operating on my Macbook Pro

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Sent with Writer.
What to do with an out of warranty Macbook Pro

My Macbook Pro just ran out of its 3 year warranty. It has a dual core processor and runs well enough that it will be in use for many more years. I upgraded the ram to 4gB and despite its age, it runs the same processor as my current MacBook Air (MBA)-basically the same specs, only larger screen. Two things made it my home base computer rather than my portable machine.
The battery life is only 3 to 4 hours depending on the usage. Also, in 2007, the largest disk option was 160gB. On the MBA, the Flash memory based SSD imparts great speed and battery life because there are no moving parts. The only problem is that SSD’s still cost a lot of money -for a decent sized SSD of around 500gB, the cost runs over a thousand dollars. Knowing technology, that price will be half in a year and half still in two.

This means I need a stopgap. If I can keep the machine going another two years in useful condition, in two years, the laptop will in fact be faster still than it was when I bought it with better battery life.

That is where this bit of laptop surgery comes in. After shopping around on the internet, I came across this Western Digital laptop hard drive -500gB for $65! It arrived in a recyclable Amazon box. With instructions from the internet, I removed the screws from the laptop.

All the exterior screws on the Macbook Pro have a wax seal, and I suspect that something tips off the Apple techs when they open these cases that the warranty is voided. That is correct -opening the holy of holies will void your warranty. Too keep snoopers out, Apple has made it even more difficult to open their later uni-body laptops, starting with the screws which require proprietary screwdrivers -but even these are available on-line for the adventurous.

Installing the hard drive was fairly straightforward once the dissection was complete -just like in a real operation! I booted up using my Snow Leopard DVD and partitioned the drive into a 400gB section for the Mac and a 100gB section for Windows 7. I’ve become a huge fan of Windows 7, and running it on Apple Hardware is not only ironic, but really great. Using Time Machine (you have to back up to a plugged in hard drive before starting all of this), all of my documents, settings, and applications were restored.

This $65 dollar hard drive gives me enough space to live in for the next two years. It is also a 7200rpm drive, meaning it’s faster than the original stock 5400rpm drive. The drive that I removed I’ll hold onto for now. I will probably slip it into an enclosure and use it as a portable drive for movies and tunes, but with over 300gB of free space on the Mac segment, I’ll be fine for a while.

This is the reason why I prefer Apple hardware. The all aluminum case is still stylish and despite what they tell you, for word processing, internet surfing, movie watching, and photo processing -you don’t need a quad-core processor that will burn your lap. Not to knock PC’s but I have not had an HP, Dell, or a Sony last more than 3 years without dying or getting miserably slow. Plus, in 1-2 years, SSD’s will be cheap enough that there will be no question this machine will be around for many years.

Sent from my iPad

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I Choose Not to Print

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From Evernote:

I Choose Not to Print

The iPad just had printing added with a great deal of restrictions, but there are apps in the App store that will allow for printing on any Wifi enabled printer. After mulling the purchase of one of these apps, I chose not to print it. Printing costs money and resources, and fact is, why print when you can send a PDF or a document? Printing is so 20th century. It is a capitulation to neo-Luddites, and it is with the same intent that Apple basically suggests you don’t waste paper and toner by putting in some road blocks to printing.

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Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta on the persistent Nokia n810 tablet

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I know it is strange to be reviewing software put out for a tablet computer made in 2007, but the Nokia n810 is an amazing bit of kit that has an incredible degree of stickiness. I had no trouble getting rid of previous gadgets on eBay including my precious Psion series 5mx and netbook (the original), when obsolescence greeted them. The n810 is clad in brush aluminum and has the build qualities one associates with Apple. It runs a tiny variant of Linux, and if you don’t mind taxing your eyes, there are ways of running full blown X11 applications on it just like you can on your Mac.

As I was toying with the idea of parting with this, I did two things. I plugged it into a speakers to play the BBC World service, and got a wonderful earful of the Queen’s English. A moment later, Radio Free Asia Korea is streaming in clear 96kb. The other thing was I discovered Opera Mobile 10.1 in the free app store where open source applications seem to pop up despite the apparent obsolescence of the platform. It is a wonder -it’s touch optimized and allows browsing the full web, but the mobile web is where it sings. The mobile sites of Gizmodo, NYTimes, and others just pop on this browser. The icons are all fat, allowing for finger navigation despite the resistive screen. Scrolling has an iOS Safari like inertia and in full screen, the browser turns the 4 year old tablet into a modern window on the web.

It speaks to this one thing in our disposable lifestyles -with appropriate care and the right software, there is no reason why technology has to be abandoned every two years. If done right, even the 4 year old technology can sing. Apple understands this ultimately adds value to your line when people can count on being able to use their device beyond its shelf life -that is why my iPod Touch 2nd generation can still run most of the games and apps that show up on the App store. Before you toss that plastic Dell laptop in the dustbin of history, try loading Ubuntu Linux on it or Chrome OS when it’s available again (and it will be).

The tech companies that survive and thrive offer a perfect alignment of form, function, hardware, and software, but also have the market awareness to adapt their offerings to what people can actually use in a meaningful way in their lives, and in this aspect, the n810 is a failure because it’s really a geek hobbyists niche toy. It never played nice with Microsoft Exchange Server, and its screen is too small to comfortably read a full web page. Pinch to zoom is not possible with a resistive screen. It offers a front facing camera, but the video calling feature was never allowed to bear fruit. The Skype client is voice only, and the Gizmo app no longer allows new accounts since their acquisition by Google. Even so, the n810 is keeping its value because of the perfection of form and function. The n810 has taken on the status of a beloved shortwave radio and bespoke web reader. I even bought a new battery for it. Do you feel the same about that plastic Dell box from 2006?