ArchDaily: This beautiful living room is designed by Verdastudio Architects & Designers and is located in Yermasoyia, Limossol, Cyprus. And the photograph was taken by Christos Papantoniou.
Beautiful. The solid wood brings warmth to the modern stone and glass design. A little cluttered for my taste but tasteful enough. Although I don’t think I would enjoy watching TV as much. The TV has a lot of glare and it is facing a wall of windows. As far as I can tell the windows are already shaded. With all that glare I am not sure you can enjoy much of anything.
It is almost impossible to find LCD or plasma TVs with matte screens anymore. And using matte-screen-based DLP, LCoS or a Laser TV would have been worse since rear projection TVs don’t do very well in bright ambient environments. The best option given this layout would have been to have darker shades or curtains.
If you enjoy watching movies or TV, lighting is important and I would recommend designing a room that can easily be made dark and without a lot of light directly hitting the front of the TV. Also consider a TV that has thin black bezels to minimize visual distractions.
The word calibrate might fend off a lot of regular folks who would rather plop down on the comfy sofa and just start watching some good TV. But calibrating isn’t too difficult and once you do, you’ll like your TV even better.
According to Sound & Vision all you need is a Blu-ray player and the right calibration disk. These are the three that were recommended:
- Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics
- Spears & Munsil High-Definition Benchmark Blu-ray Disc Edition
- Disney WOW: World of Wonder
Once you are the proud owner of one of these calibration Blu-ray disks adjust your room lighting to how it would be when you’re watching TV. Next, if you have picture modes, (some TVs don’t, so don’t worry if you can’t find them), then pick one of the three: Movie, Cinema, Theater. Or THX if that is an option.
Now dig through the menu system and look for color temperature. Once you find it change it to 6500, Warm, or Low. If you can find a Gamma setting put it to 2.2 or close to it, or Film. This next bit might take some time: turn all things ‘dynamic’ or ‘automatic’ off. After calibration you can turn them back on if you want to.
Now, stick the calibration disk, play it and follow the instructions. In no time, you’ll be watching what looks like a different, and better, TV!
Hispazone (Spanish) → Engadget: The ASUS DR-900 is a 9-inch e-reader. Build quality is solid but pricing can be a limitation when it starts to ship in the first quarter of 2011: €300
Today the Glif arrived, the 3D printed version.
Tom and Dan personally signed the instruction card on the back. A nice touch.
Here is the Glif attached to my iPhone 4. Before fully attaching it I tested it for quite some time. The Glif fits perfectly to a naked iPhone 4. And the 3D printed version has a rough texture that I thought might scratch the glass. I wasn’t too worried about the front glass but I was worried about the one on the back. The back glass isn’t as durable as the front. After partly attaching the Glif and then checking to see if there were any scratches a few times I didn’t find any, so I completely attached the Glif.
The 3D printed version of the Glif is quite level.
Mounted on a Manfroto tripod with a Bogen head. Looks and works great. The setup felt stable, enough so that I wouldn’t be worried about carrying around the tripod with the iPhone 4 Gliffed on top.
The Bogen 3/8-inch mounting plate has a screw opening (non-padded area) that is larger in diameter than the Glif’s rectangle around the threaded nut. The result is a slight tilt. I haven’t tried, but I would recommend a tool like the Theodolite app to make sure you’re leveled.
The Glif as a stand works quite well in landscape.
And in portrait. In this photo the setup might not look very stable but it is. I found I like this slightly more slanted stance.
Here are the five critical truths to iFixit’s Self-Repair Manifesto:
- Repair is better than recycling: Making our things last longer is both more efficient and more cost-effective than mining them for raw materials.
- Repair saves the planet: Earth has limited resources and we can’t run a linear manufacturing process forever. The best way to be efficient is to reuse what we already have.
- Repair saves you money: Fixing things is often free, and usually cheaper than replacing them. Doing the repair yourself saves serious dough.
- Repair teaches engineering: The best way to find out how something works is to take it apart!
- If you can’t fix it, you don’t own it: Repair connects people and devices, creating bonds that transcend consumption. Self-repair is sustainable.
I agree. Except that part about saving money. I try to purchase stuff that will last and usually they cost a lot. When I have judgment lapses sometimes I come home with whatever was the absolute cheapest. And regret it soon afterwards when it breaks. These cheapo gadgets are almost always cheaper to throw away than to fix. But the trick is to never buy them in the first place.
I have a late-2009 17-inch MacBook Pro and when Apple came out with Snow Leopard that was an optimized version of Leopard I was ecstatic! I didn’t have to worry about whether or not my hardware could run the latest OS; it would run it even faster. I hope Apple does it again with Lion so I am not forced to upgrade to a faster machine. What I would like to do is upgrade my hard drive to SSD if the need arises. I hope to keep my MacBook for a very long time and I also hope Apple will help me do that by continuing to optimize OS X while adding features that help to get work done and have fun.
I have an ancient Sony Walkman (model number: WM-F102) that I would like to get repaired. The radio works intermittently but the cassette driving mechanism doesn’t at all. As you can see it is in beautiful physical shape. I also have a Casio MG-777 game calculator from many years ago. I have fond memories of both and would like to get them fixed. Anybody know anyone who can help? If there is someone who can restore these two electronic gadgets to original condition I intend to chronicle the repair process and post it. I don’t think self-repair is an option, unfortunately.