Friday, September 06, 2013
My 1 Week Startup: BargainWhale.com
I spent last week working on building from scratch a web application based business. You can see the results at Bargainwhale.com
This post is about that experience. I hope it will be something other potential entrepreneurs might be interested in.
Background:
The two classic resources for startups are time and money. Many of you who know me know I have a full time job, a wife, two kids, and a few time consuming hobbies. All of which is to say I'm a man without a lot of time. For those same reasons I am a man who can pay the bills but doesn't have any savings set aside that could be used for starting a company.
In the past I've written some of my own programs over Christmas break. Some people like to use vacation to play video games, I like to write code. Recently my company decided to furlough everybody for 1 week. I found myself with a week and decided to spend it writing code for myself. I decided to invite a few friends who were also being furloughed for a week to write code with me.
Other people who aren't lucky enough to be furloughed could use 1 week of vacation and do a startup in some of their vacation time.
Step 1 The Idea:
I keep a google doc of business ideas. Other people might use a notepad or an Evernote note. The important thing here is that when you run into problems in life or cool ideas to write it down in a place you can look at it later next to all your other ideas.
For this 1 week startup I flipped through the list and wrote down the top 3 ideas that met this criteria:
1) Required almost no money
2) Made use of skills I have that others don't
3) Could be made in a week
4) Had good potential to be profitable at scale
5) Would mostly run itself when it was going without constant time investment
Step 2 The Partner(s):
The upside to having partners are many. Partners mean you have more hands doing work so work gets done faster. It means you can start to specialize, with one person taking on say graphic design and another taking on say webserver administration. It also means you can take advantage of complementary skills. It's also nice to have a sanity check on your ideas, or even just look over your shoulder when you are stuck on something stupid.
The downsides to partners are also many. Your share of the company goes down the more partners you have. Not everybody will contribute at the same level to the company or have the same level of dedication. You have to coordinate between people and that means spending some time meeting together.
For this startup I asked 14 different people I had worked with and who I thought might have some entrepreneurial spirit. 12 said they were very interested. 3 weeks out, 12 people. Was I going to have to break into teams and do multiple projects?
One week ahead of the 1 week startup I set up a pre-meeting. The purpose was to agree on the project and to commit to spending 5 full days the next week working on it. If somebody couldn't attend and still wanted to be part of the project they needed to commit the the full 5 days. 12 people became 2 people.
It turns out that many people are intrigued by the idea of starting their own business, but when the rubber meets the road would rather be comfortable where they are. Most of us are used to being paid directly for our work. When the prospect of sacrificing leisure time to work without pay fully sits in our minds it sounds like a terrible deal. The ownership and prospect of greater future pay seem too uncertain.
Once the week actually started 2 people became 1 person. Me and 1 other person.
It turns out me and 1 other person is exactly the right number. We were able to build a very complex application in a single week. We worked well together and got a lot more done than either of us could have done on our own. I ended up with the best partner I could have hoped for.
Step 3 The Pre-Week:
5 day startup doesn't have the same ring as 1 week startup. But for various reasons we decided we could do this in a business week instead of a calendar week. We didn't want to burn ourselves out too badly because it was pretty obvious that even if we built things in a week that we were going to have more things we could improve in some evenings/weekends later on.
OK. I cheated a little bit and spent a couple evenings ahead of the week doing some prep. I didn't get much done, but every little bit helps. I was able to start Monday having already figured out how to download some basic test data from eBay. I also had a completely non-functional artificial intelligence framework written. It didn't work at all, the key to our business didn't work at all.
Step 4 The Week:
Monday we both spent the day pair programming (a fancy word for looking over eachother's shoulders) to make the artificial intelligence work. If we couldn't make it work by the end of the day we were going to have to change to a different project and do a 4 day startup. As the day rolled on it was looking more and more possible we were going to have to give it up. Artificial intelligence is hard.
We persevered, by the end of Monday we had it working. We could take a few liked items (we started with camera gear) and a few disliked items and predict with a fair amount of success if I would like other camera gear.
Tuesday-Friday we spent making our minimal viable product. A simple website that you can browse categories and like/dislike items and it will learn from that and start presenting you better stuff. Behind the scenes there is a lot to make all that happen.
The thing I didn't count on was that all of it was fun. Work is fun when it's something of your own creation that you own. You tell yourself what to do, and you do it. It is immensely time consuming, and mentally exhausting, and sometimes you feel like an idiot. But it is above all fun. If I had to shut down the site today and never made a penny off of it I'd still be glad I spent the week working on it.
Step 5 It's Not Perfect, Launch Anyway:
I can right now without taking a breath list at least three dozen things wrong with the site. Someday when those three dozen things are perfect there will be three dozen other things that are wrong.
That's without even getting into all the features that we'd like to have there that aren't there.
None of that matters. What matters is that what we do have is pretty cool and pretty useful. Put it out there and let people play with it. Start figuring out what it is people really want. Start figuring out how to get people to try it. Build a history.
Over time as we find evenings and weekends it will only get better. At some point we'll cross a threshold of figuring out the features, the interface, and the marketing. Then the site will go from the users being the two of us to being too many users to handle.
Lessons Learned:
Can you start a company in a week and be rich at the end of it? Well, I couldn't. What I did find was that I could make a cool product in a week. I learned that spending a week making a cool product was as much fun as a lot of vacations I've had. I've learned that owning cool product with good business potential revives my optimism for the future.
This post is about that experience. I hope it will be something other potential entrepreneurs might be interested in.
Background:
The two classic resources for startups are time and money. Many of you who know me know I have a full time job, a wife, two kids, and a few time consuming hobbies. All of which is to say I'm a man without a lot of time. For those same reasons I am a man who can pay the bills but doesn't have any savings set aside that could be used for starting a company.
In the past I've written some of my own programs over Christmas break. Some people like to use vacation to play video games, I like to write code. Recently my company decided to furlough everybody for 1 week. I found myself with a week and decided to spend it writing code for myself. I decided to invite a few friends who were also being furloughed for a week to write code with me.
Other people who aren't lucky enough to be furloughed could use 1 week of vacation and do a startup in some of their vacation time.
Step 1 The Idea:
I keep a google doc of business ideas. Other people might use a notepad or an Evernote note. The important thing here is that when you run into problems in life or cool ideas to write it down in a place you can look at it later next to all your other ideas.
For this 1 week startup I flipped through the list and wrote down the top 3 ideas that met this criteria:
1) Required almost no money
2) Made use of skills I have that others don't
3) Could be made in a week
4) Had good potential to be profitable at scale
5) Would mostly run itself when it was going without constant time investment
Step 2 The Partner(s):
The upside to having partners are many. Partners mean you have more hands doing work so work gets done faster. It means you can start to specialize, with one person taking on say graphic design and another taking on say webserver administration. It also means you can take advantage of complementary skills. It's also nice to have a sanity check on your ideas, or even just look over your shoulder when you are stuck on something stupid.
The downsides to partners are also many. Your share of the company goes down the more partners you have. Not everybody will contribute at the same level to the company or have the same level of dedication. You have to coordinate between people and that means spending some time meeting together.
For this startup I asked 14 different people I had worked with and who I thought might have some entrepreneurial spirit. 12 said they were very interested. 3 weeks out, 12 people. Was I going to have to break into teams and do multiple projects?
One week ahead of the 1 week startup I set up a pre-meeting. The purpose was to agree on the project and to commit to spending 5 full days the next week working on it. If somebody couldn't attend and still wanted to be part of the project they needed to commit the the full 5 days. 12 people became 2 people.
It turns out that many people are intrigued by the idea of starting their own business, but when the rubber meets the road would rather be comfortable where they are. Most of us are used to being paid directly for our work. When the prospect of sacrificing leisure time to work without pay fully sits in our minds it sounds like a terrible deal. The ownership and prospect of greater future pay seem too uncertain.
Once the week actually started 2 people became 1 person. Me and 1 other person.
It turns out me and 1 other person is exactly the right number. We were able to build a very complex application in a single week. We worked well together and got a lot more done than either of us could have done on our own. I ended up with the best partner I could have hoped for.
Step 3 The Pre-Week:
5 day startup doesn't have the same ring as 1 week startup. But for various reasons we decided we could do this in a business week instead of a calendar week. We didn't want to burn ourselves out too badly because it was pretty obvious that even if we built things in a week that we were going to have more things we could improve in some evenings/weekends later on.
OK. I cheated a little bit and spent a couple evenings ahead of the week doing some prep. I didn't get much done, but every little bit helps. I was able to start Monday having already figured out how to download some basic test data from eBay. I also had a completely non-functional artificial intelligence framework written. It didn't work at all, the key to our business didn't work at all.
Step 4 The Week:
Monday we both spent the day pair programming (a fancy word for looking over eachother's shoulders) to make the artificial intelligence work. If we couldn't make it work by the end of the day we were going to have to change to a different project and do a 4 day startup. As the day rolled on it was looking more and more possible we were going to have to give it up. Artificial intelligence is hard.
We persevered, by the end of Monday we had it working. We could take a few liked items (we started with camera gear) and a few disliked items and predict with a fair amount of success if I would like other camera gear.
Tuesday-Friday we spent making our minimal viable product. A simple website that you can browse categories and like/dislike items and it will learn from that and start presenting you better stuff. Behind the scenes there is a lot to make all that happen.
The thing I didn't count on was that all of it was fun. Work is fun when it's something of your own creation that you own. You tell yourself what to do, and you do it. It is immensely time consuming, and mentally exhausting, and sometimes you feel like an idiot. But it is above all fun. If I had to shut down the site today and never made a penny off of it I'd still be glad I spent the week working on it.
Step 5 It's Not Perfect, Launch Anyway:
I can right now without taking a breath list at least three dozen things wrong with the site. Someday when those three dozen things are perfect there will be three dozen other things that are wrong.
That's without even getting into all the features that we'd like to have there that aren't there.
None of that matters. What matters is that what we do have is pretty cool and pretty useful. Put it out there and let people play with it. Start figuring out what it is people really want. Start figuring out how to get people to try it. Build a history.
Over time as we find evenings and weekends it will only get better. At some point we'll cross a threshold of figuring out the features, the interface, and the marketing. Then the site will go from the users being the two of us to being too many users to handle.
Lessons Learned:
Can you start a company in a week and be rich at the end of it? Well, I couldn't. What I did find was that I could make a cool product in a week. I learned that spending a week making a cool product was as much fun as a lot of vacations I've had. I've learned that owning cool product with good business potential revives my optimism for the future.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Serenity
Serenity. I was trying to place the feeling I’ve been having the last couple weeks. It’s Serenity.
I hired on at IBM in the peak of the dot com bubble bursting when companies were withdrawing written offers to college grads. In my early training I got to experience another new hire in training with me dissapear from class because he was laid off. I’ve been at IBM for 12 years now, and in that time have survived probably 12 rounds of layoffs. I’ve had 9 different managers. I’ve worked with great people and terrible people. Both kinds of people have lost their jobs while I have kept mine. I’ve alternated between loving my job so much I would pay to do it to hating my job so much no amount of money would be enough for me to do it.
In all that time I’ve never heard a false rumor at IBM. The current rumor is that this year’s round of layoffs is going to be larger than last year, and last year was the largest I can remember. Somewhere in somebody's office is a large list of names of people who soon will be getting a small severance package and who will start handing out resumes looking for other employment which they may or may not find. My name may be on that list. My name may not be on that list. I give myself coin flip odds. Flip a coin enough times it is bound to come up tails, and I’ve flipped that coin a lot over the years. For certain there will be co-workers names on that list who I consider friends.
Unlike some previous years I am not worried if my name is on the list. Unlike other previous years I am not hoping my name is on the list either. I do have a family to support, a mortgage to pay, and other demands on the money that employment grants me. I am just at peace with outcomes beyond my control.
I have finally found the answer to the age old prayer:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
I hired on at IBM in the peak of the dot com bubble bursting when companies were withdrawing written offers to college grads. In my early training I got to experience another new hire in training with me dissapear from class because he was laid off. I’ve been at IBM for 12 years now, and in that time have survived probably 12 rounds of layoffs. I’ve had 9 different managers. I’ve worked with great people and terrible people. Both kinds of people have lost their jobs while I have kept mine. I’ve alternated between loving my job so much I would pay to do it to hating my job so much no amount of money would be enough for me to do it.
In all that time I’ve never heard a false rumor at IBM. The current rumor is that this year’s round of layoffs is going to be larger than last year, and last year was the largest I can remember. Somewhere in somebody's office is a large list of names of people who soon will be getting a small severance package and who will start handing out resumes looking for other employment which they may or may not find. My name may be on that list. My name may not be on that list. I give myself coin flip odds. Flip a coin enough times it is bound to come up tails, and I’ve flipped that coin a lot over the years. For certain there will be co-workers names on that list who I consider friends.
Unlike some previous years I am not worried if my name is on the list. Unlike other previous years I am not hoping my name is on the list either. I do have a family to support, a mortgage to pay, and other demands on the money that employment grants me. I am just at peace with outcomes beyond my control.
I have finally found the answer to the age old prayer:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Amen.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Prayer is Not a Public Speaking Device
I have grown up in the church and I'd like to share a practice I've never felt comfortable with. Prayer as a public speaking device. I'd like to get others opinions here, is there something I've been missing all these years?
Every time I hear a sermon or a lesson or a bible study there will likely be a time of public prayer. Everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes and one person talks. The person who talks sounds a lot more like they did when they were just talking to the room full of people than I do when I pray by myself in a quiet place. I also don't see a lot of public prayer in the Bible. Instead I see Jesus withdrawing to a lonely place to pray, or going to a mountain to pray.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
In Matthew this passage immediately precedes the 15 second Lord's Prayer. I have heard the Lord's prayer done publicly many times over the years and every time I wonder if people have read the passage and are just being ironic.
I think it is time to end fake prayer and bring back real prayer. Go withdraw to a mountain, or to your room and close the door. Ask God for guidance, for help with your very specific and very real problems. Thank him for the blessings you have. Just make it real.
Every time I hear a sermon or a lesson or a bible study there will likely be a time of public prayer. Everyone bows their heads and closes their eyes and one person talks. The person who talks sounds a lot more like they did when they were just talking to the room full of people than I do when I pray by myself in a quiet place. I also don't see a lot of public prayer in the Bible. Instead I see Jesus withdrawing to a lonely place to pray, or going to a mountain to pray.
“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
In Matthew this passage immediately precedes the 15 second Lord's Prayer. I have heard the Lord's prayer done publicly many times over the years and every time I wonder if people have read the passage and are just being ironic.
I think it is time to end fake prayer and bring back real prayer. Go withdraw to a mountain, or to your room and close the door. Ask God for guidance, for help with your very specific and very real problems. Thank him for the blessings you have. Just make it real.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Nokia Changes mean mobile Linux consolidation
I'll start off by saying I have no inside information on this one, everything I'm writing would be what I think should happen and has a reasonable chance of happening.
There are currently 4 Linux based mobile platforms:
I think Nokia's announcement on Feb 11th is going to be related to a shift in strategy with respect to these projects.
Nokia should join Meego to Linaro and also support Android apps on this newly merged platform. These three Linux mobile platforms could cooexist as one product.
It's pretty obvious what's holding the Meego platform back is lack of arm platform support, and joining forces with Linaro gets arm support pretty quickly. They are both Linux based so the merger isn't too technically painful. It could be done quickly enough to put out a Meego handset based on existing Nokia hardware in April. It also leaves some flexibility to do an Intel implementation in cooperation with Canonical down the road as Intel's hardware gets ready. Meego just realigned it's release schedule to be the exact same as Linaro, so this isn't too far fetched.
Meanwhile it wouldn't be too hard to add support for Android applications as well. It's already been demonstrated in the wild (see below on Alien Dalvik). By doing this you get all the android ecosystem support but can still differentiate with native Meego applications. I actually don't think Nokia will do this because they want to avoid becoming a commodity android phone maker, and even if they support native Meego apps in addition to Android apps developers will likely make Android apps to reach a bigger market and skip making native Meego apps alltogether.
Nokia may instead decide to merge Meego and WebOS. Now that HP owns WebOS they are dying to get some marketshare to keep from becoming irrelevant and they are also looking for partners to help carry the cost of maintaining an OS. Both Meego and WebOS are Linux based, so the technical hurdles aren't too great. Plus Nokia could be an equal partner in setting the direction going forward.
Unfortunately none of this solves the problem of what to do with Symbian. I think Symbian still has a niche to fill on the low end, but Nokia's problems there are from hardware. To fix their hardware problems Nokia needs to come out with some dirt cheap phones based on reference platforms from chipset vendors and slapped with Symbian and some bundled Symbian software. Commodity hardware and software bundling differentiation.
What doesn't make sense to me is jumping on Windows Phone 7. There is no synergy with any of the work Nokia has done up to this point, and the developer community and marketshare are very small. They would also give total control to a single vendor in Microsoft whose strategy doesn't align well with theirs.
Some Background: aka the "facts"
Nokia's new CEO has said on the investor call and in a recently leaked memo that Nokia's strategy is changing now, and the details will be announced Feb 11:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-rallies-troops-in-brutally-honest-burnin/
http://seekingalpha.com/article/249092-nokia-ceo-discusses-q4-2010-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda
Meego, the joint project between Intel and Nokia recently announced a switch to April/October release, which is the same release schedule as Linaro and Canonical.
http://wiki.meego.com/Release_Engineering/Release_Timeline
It has already been demonstrated that you can with a little bit of work run android apps on Meego using Alien Dalvik:
http://thehandheldblog.com/2011/02/08/alien-dalvik-android-apps-meego-maemo/
http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/alien_dalvik_will_let_android_apps_run_on_meego-_maemo/
There are currently 4 Linux based mobile platforms:
- Linaro
- Meego
- Android
- WebOS
I think Nokia's announcement on Feb 11th is going to be related to a shift in strategy with respect to these projects.
Nokia should join Meego to Linaro and also support Android apps on this newly merged platform. These three Linux mobile platforms could cooexist as one product.
It's pretty obvious what's holding the Meego platform back is lack of arm platform support, and joining forces with Linaro gets arm support pretty quickly. They are both Linux based so the merger isn't too technically painful. It could be done quickly enough to put out a Meego handset based on existing Nokia hardware in April. It also leaves some flexibility to do an Intel implementation in cooperation with Canonical down the road as Intel's hardware gets ready. Meego just realigned it's release schedule to be the exact same as Linaro, so this isn't too far fetched.
Meanwhile it wouldn't be too hard to add support for Android applications as well. It's already been demonstrated in the wild (see below on Alien Dalvik). By doing this you get all the android ecosystem support but can still differentiate with native Meego applications. I actually don't think Nokia will do this because they want to avoid becoming a commodity android phone maker, and even if they support native Meego apps in addition to Android apps developers will likely make Android apps to reach a bigger market and skip making native Meego apps alltogether.
Nokia may instead decide to merge Meego and WebOS. Now that HP owns WebOS they are dying to get some marketshare to keep from becoming irrelevant and they are also looking for partners to help carry the cost of maintaining an OS. Both Meego and WebOS are Linux based, so the technical hurdles aren't too great. Plus Nokia could be an equal partner in setting the direction going forward.
Unfortunately none of this solves the problem of what to do with Symbian. I think Symbian still has a niche to fill on the low end, but Nokia's problems there are from hardware. To fix their hardware problems Nokia needs to come out with some dirt cheap phones based on reference platforms from chipset vendors and slapped with Symbian and some bundled Symbian software. Commodity hardware and software bundling differentiation.
What doesn't make sense to me is jumping on Windows Phone 7. There is no synergy with any of the work Nokia has done up to this point, and the developer community and marketshare are very small. They would also give total control to a single vendor in Microsoft whose strategy doesn't align well with theirs.
Some Background: aka the "facts"
Nokia's new CEO has said on the investor call and in a recently leaked memo that Nokia's strategy is changing now, and the details will be announced Feb 11:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/08/nokia-ceo-stephen-elop-rallies-troops-in-brutally-honest-burnin/
http://seekingalpha.com/article/249092-nokia-ceo-discusses-q4-2010-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda
Meego, the joint project between Intel and Nokia recently announced a switch to April/October release, which is the same release schedule as Linaro and Canonical.
http://wiki.meego.com/Release_Engineering/Release_Timeline
It has already been demonstrated that you can with a little bit of work run android apps on Meego using Alien Dalvik:
http://thehandheldblog.com/2011/02/08/alien-dalvik-android-apps-meego-maemo/
http://maemo.org/news/planet-maemo/alien_dalvik_will_let_android_apps_run_on_meego-_maemo/
Friday, December 10, 2010
Lasik 22 hours after
So I had lasik yesterday and I've gotten a lot of people wondering how it went. So here's a summary.
The procedure itself is not painful, but it isn't exactly fun. I turned down the Valium because that stuff makes me feel pretty weird, so the procedure was probably a little more intense for me than for most people who are fine with Valium. I mean they are cutting your eye open. I equate it in level of fun to having a crown done at a dentist. It took 15 minutes total. The laser part itself was 30 seconds each eye to cut the flap, and another 30 seconds each eye to form the cornea. But you have clamps and probes and stuff on your eyes for most of the 15 minutes and no amount of numbing drops or Valium is going to take away the psychological weirdness of that.
Right after the operation my eyes hurt. Not too bad, like a mild burning, I smiled for the picture 30 seconds after. They were also crazy sensitive to light. For the drive home I had to close my eyes and cover them with my hands to keep the sun out. Sunglasses are not enough. The pain lasted about an hour. After that the pain was gone.
3 hours after the operation I was walking around without any pain (maybe a little minor irritation) and checking my email. Everything was still a bit hazy and there was a glow around lights and lcd screens. But I could read a clock from across the room without any glasses or contacts.
That night I was watching tv and seeing pretty well. Still some light haze and glow around lights.
This morning I drove myself to my post op. Still a little haze and glow around lights, but pretty minor now, less than 24 hours after surgery. My vision tested at 20/25. So now it's a waiting game to see how quickly the slight haze & glowing clear up as my eye heals. The odds are both will go away completely and my vision will end up better than 20/20. My eyes are a little bloodshot as well, but that should go away in the next 3 weeks by Christmas. So I'm on track with no complications. In a month the final verdict will be in, but the expectation of both me and my doctor are that it was a success and everything will be great.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Know your Alamo Drafthouse
Or what's the story with 3D...
I went with my family to the Alamo Drafthouse Village (on Anderson Ln) and watched Avatar in RealD 3D. RealD gives you these disposable glasses that have circular polarization, clockwise for one eye and counterclockwise for the other eye. This theater has converted over completely to Sony 4K projectors. It was stunning. No ghosting, good brightness and crisp detail. I was so impressed by the visuals I decided to go again. Despite a terrible plot with 1 dimensional characters. Can I watch it on mute?
Due to scheduling I ended up at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (off 183 north) for my second viewing. I thought they'd have the same setup. But the glasses were different. Turns out this theater has Barco DP-2000 projectors with Dolby 3D. Dolby 3D uses color separation glasses, so they are heavier and have red/green kind of glass lenses. My pair of lenses were dirty and I had to clean them. They also are really reflective so you get some light reflection off your face, which is kind of distracting. But the main thing I think that hindered this viewing is that the Barco DP-2000 is a 2K projector. 1/4 as many pixels as the sony projector at the other theater. The end result was that some of the image seemed blurry at times, like it was out of focus. This as really apparent with the background. But no ghosting. Still a nice image overall.
So. If you have a chance to watch Avatar please see it in 3D. And if you have a chance see it on a 4K projector like those at Alamo Village. Also, the Alamo on South Lamar has 4K projectors as well, though I'm not sure if they've converted over entirely or not.
I went with my family to the Alamo Drafthouse Village (on Anderson Ln) and watched Avatar in RealD 3D. RealD gives you these disposable glasses that have circular polarization, clockwise for one eye and counterclockwise for the other eye. This theater has converted over completely to Sony 4K projectors. It was stunning. No ghosting, good brightness and crisp detail. I was so impressed by the visuals I decided to go again. Despite a terrible plot with 1 dimensional characters. Can I watch it on mute?
Due to scheduling I ended up at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek (off 183 north) for my second viewing. I thought they'd have the same setup. But the glasses were different. Turns out this theater has Barco DP-2000 projectors with Dolby 3D. Dolby 3D uses color separation glasses, so they are heavier and have red/green kind of glass lenses. My pair of lenses were dirty and I had to clean them. They also are really reflective so you get some light reflection off your face, which is kind of distracting. But the main thing I think that hindered this viewing is that the Barco DP-2000 is a 2K projector. 1/4 as many pixels as the sony projector at the other theater. The end result was that some of the image seemed blurry at times, like it was out of focus. This as really apparent with the background. But no ghosting. Still a nice image overall.
So. If you have a chance to watch Avatar please see it in 3D. And if you have a chance see it on a 4K projector like those at Alamo Village. Also, the Alamo on South Lamar has 4K projectors as well, though I'm not sure if they've converted over entirely or not.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Redwoods
As many of you know Sondra and Ben's son Orion died last week at the age of 4. That kind of thing really makes you think about the importance of family and making every day count. Sometimes we take family for granted. Like my dad, who lives near me now. He's in his 70s and hopefully we have many good years ahead of us. But he's never seen the Redwood trees. Since I've had a family of my own we don't spend a lot of time just the two of us. So I just bought a pair of plane tickets for 13 days from now. We'll fly out, rent a car, drive down the beautiful pacific coast highway and he'll see the redwoods for the first time in his long life. And I'll be there with him when he does. Father and son on an adventure together.
I encourage everybody to find the time for family. Take your sister to a concert of a band you both enjoy, take your son fishing, to to a flea market with your mom. Do something, because life is short and if you don't do something now you'll look back someday and wish you had, but it will be too late.
I encourage everybody to find the time for family. Take your sister to a concert of a band you both enjoy, take your son fishing, to to a flea market with your mom. Do something, because life is short and if you don't do something now you'll look back someday and wish you had, but it will be too late.
