This is my first Chillwave iMix, published on iTunes today. If you’re curious about the Chillwave sound, this is the place to start:

I’ve been very disappointed in the lack of space sci-fi on TV this past decade. It’s like it fell out of fashion. Or something.

So naturally I was expecting the Star Wars live action TV show since 2006, when it was first announced. Originally it was to come out in 2008, then 2009, then 2010, and… now it’s canned.

Apparently, ~2 million dollars per episode is not enough to realize Lucas’ vision. He said he needs 10 times that. I’m not debating that creating an epic TV series requires lots of money. What I can’t understand though is why Lucas can’t see the answer in front of him.

The answer is simple: the fanbase.

If some amazing Star Wars fan films were created for $50 or for $500, then I’m sure that Lucas can do something better with $2mil, by employing the power of the fanbase, for free, or for little compensation. Create “clubs” where fans can sign up and offer their workmanship or resources. For example:

– Use fans to stitch together wardrobes.
– Use fans in simple props construction.
– Use fans’ tracks for moving.
– Use fans’ land for locations.
– Use fans to cook for cast & crew.
– Use fans as extras.
– Use completely unknown, cheaper actors that are good for the role.

I’m pretty sure that the Star Wars fanbase is so huge, that the right people offering their help in batches (e.g. one member working one week, another member is coming next week to replace him etc), can make this work.

If this works for projects like GNU/Linux, or Wikipedia, then why wouldn’t it work for an entertainment project? In fact, exactly because Lucas Films is an indie firm, it makes things much easier in “employing” fans. Not having to have to deal with most strict Hollywood unions & guilds and whatnot, is a huge plus in realizing this project with the power of the community. Plus, they usually shoot outside of USA.

As for the special effects, Lucas can create a smaller company than his ILM, which will charge less. He already has a green screen studio, or if it charges too much too, create a newer one — part of this liter production company that is not directly involved with Lucas Films Ltd (which tends to be very expensive, even if the client is George Lucas himself).

Overall, his vision should be doable with $2mil per episode. Just use the power of the juggernaut you already created George: your fanatics, that would even give their right arm — if it was to be severed with a real lightsaber.

In early 2009 a new music sub-genre started taking over the blogsphere. It was a new and old kind of music: think of ’80s synth-pop, married with shoegaze rock and dream-pop haze, filtered through a more electronic sound, and adding lots of reverb to the (usually) lackster vocals/lyrics. It’s the perfect relaxing somewhat-dancy summer music. Just chill. It’s made by youngsters (usually) in their bedroom, using a Macbook (well, usually). The internet is the main boosting medium for the genre, with most new such (usually) one-man bands releasing their albums on BandCamp for free.

It’s name is “chillwave”. The HipsterRunoff blog invented the genre’s name, after “glo-fi” and “hypnagogic pop” didn’t stick online.

I first became aware of it last Summer, but didn’t really like what I was hearing. I felt that it was ambient hipster drivel, drone noise. Unformulated, uncatchy, unintelligent, boring. I was dumbfounded that Pitchfork was covering these bands so much.

And then, last Fall, Neon Indian’s debut album arrived.

The main track on the album, “Deadbeat Summer”, stroke homerun with me. It immediately transported me back to when I was a kid in the late ’70s and early ’80s (7-8 years old), living in the town of Preveza. It immediately gave me that feeling that it’s so hot outside, that I need to hurry to the beach, where it’s usually crowded every day during summer. I’d run around at the beach, looking at the breast-naked female tourists lying in the sun, and not understanding what their deal is. I’d splash around, and be care-free. And if I was a good girl, I’d be treated with an ice cream on the way back home. Deadbeat Summer’s sonic vibes accurately described my psyche and frame of mind of that time. It was like my soul was lifted from my current body and was put back to that time, at the body of the young girl I was.

That was the exact time when I “got” chillwave.

For people to really connect with it they must have the right life experiences, usually hot summers and outdoors play that involve water in some way or another, or for others it works if they feel nostalgic about the care-free era of the ’80s. For my husband though, the genre doesn’t work. He doesn’t understand the atmosphere this music is trying to create. He finds the music underwhelming, “unremarkable” as he says in particular. Maybe growing up in colder France makes it difficult for him to understand and visualize the music, however, I feel confident that if he will give it a chance he will enjoy it too — as it has happened with other bands that originally he disliked but later became a fan.

Since chillwave got somewhat established in late 2009, there have been a number of pro- and con- articles in the blogosphere. Most indie blogs support the genre and have been the driving force behind the explosion in the genre’s popularity, but know-it-all old-style publications like the New York Times don’t get it, and had it dismissed. Of course, that NYTimes article is mostly rubbish, written by someone who doesn’t get the whole idea, however, this and some other “hating” articles do ring true on a couple of points:

1. Translating this kind of music live is nearly impossible. The whole point of the reverb effects and dreamy sound is so that the listener can sit on a couch, close his/her eyes, and make the song his/hers, based on his/her own experiences. Having the same effect on a venue, next to people who smoke weed, shout, and drink like sponges, is just not possible. A lot of the magic is lost in live performances. What is needed is for the bands that want to take these experiences on the stage to also have their own pre-programmed lighting gear, plus a big screen with care-free beach-related footage. Or something.

2. Someone said that this music is the product of the economic recession in the US. Made at home, with laptops, spending no money on them whatsoever. And their care-free sound tries to make the listener forget his financial problems. There might be some truth in this, but then again, maybe not.

3. Someone else said that chillwave hasn’t been mainstream yet because the “ultimate” chillwave album has not been released yet. That the genre is still evolving, and it’s still expecting of its own “Nirvana band” to popularize the genre to the mainstream.

Personally, I believe that the best chillwave album released so far is Wild Nothing’s “Gemini” (May 2010). Some people classify the album as dream-pop and only borderline chillwave, but to me it sounds like dead-ringer chillwave (plus, the band’s label page describes their sound as all things chillwave). For me, it’s one of the best albums released this year, regardless of genre. Every single of the tracks in there is amazing. There are no fillers in that album.

Other popular chillwave bands apart Wild Nothing and Neon Indian are Delorean, Small Black, Toro Y Moi, Memory Tapes, Teen Daze, Millionyoung, and Washed Out. Bands that are borderline chillwave: The Radio Dept, Real Estate, Best Coast, and some tracks by Bear in Heaven. Grandfathers of chillwave can be named the Animal Collective, Ariel Pink, Beach House among a few others.

iTunes created a chillwave sub-section on their Electronic section recently. Are you riding the chill wave too?

About 1000 of the 12500 songs in my iTunes library are awarded with 5 stars. However, some of these 5-star songs are better than other 5-star songs. This is my alphabetical list of these “6 star” songs, as I call them. The best of the best, of the “new” music (as Pitchfork calls it) that is bound to replace old style rock and pop in the minds of the young luminaries.

Please note that the specific list only includes indie artists. Also, the tracks marked with a — are legally free to download, if you search some reputable music sites, or their label, band, or PR sites. If you can’t find them, email me and I’ll get you the URLs (again, legal downloads only).

— Animal Collective – Grass
* Animal Collective – Summertime Clothes
* Animal Kingdom – Into the Sea
* The Antlers – Kettering
— Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
* Bat for Lashes – Daniel
— Beach House – Norway
* Bear In Heaven – You Do You
— Bear In Heaven – Lovesick Teenagers
* Bill Callahan – All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast
— Black Lips – Cold Hands
— Blonde Redhead – 23
— The Burning of Rome – Norman Bates
— The Burning of Rome- Cowboy Death-Pop Star
* Caesars – Winter Song
* Cloud Cult – The Tornado Lessons
— Crystal Castles – Untrust Us
— Cut Copy -Lights & Music
— Dead Man’s Bones – In The Room Where You Sleep
* Deastro – Moondagger
— Early Day Miners – All Harm
* Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Desert Song
* Eels – Old Shit / New Shit
— El Perro Del Mar – God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get)
* Empire of the Sun – We Are the People
— Faunts – Memories of places we’ve never been
* Feist – One Evening
— Fever Ray – Keep the Streets Empty for Me
— Fleet Foxes – Mykonos
* Four Tet – Angel Echoes
— Glint – Freak
* Gravenhurst – The Western Lands
* Grizzly Bear – Knife
* HEALTH – We Are Water
— HEALTH – Triceratops (CFCF RMX)
* J. Ralph – One Million Miles Away
— Jane Vain & The Dark Matter – C’mon Baby Say Bang Bang
* JJ – Ecstacy
— Laura Veirs – Wide-Eyed, Legless
* Laura Veirs – July Flame
* Longwave – The Devil and the Liar
* Loquat – Swingset Chain
— Low vs Diamond – Heart Attack
* M83 – Moonchild
* M83 – Don’t Save Us from the Flames
* M83 – Fields, Shorelines and Hunters
* M83 – *

* M83 – Teen Angst
* The Mary Onettes – Symmetry
— The Mary Onettes – Void
— Matti Paalanen – Here comes the rain
* Melissa Auf der Maur – Meet Me On The Darkside
— Memory Tapes – Graphics (Remodel Edit)
* Midlake – Home
* The Morning Benders – Stitches
— Neon Indian – Deadbeat Summer
* Of Montreal – Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games
* Orenda Fink – Bloodline
* Paper Route – Carousel
* Paper Route – Tiger Teeth
* Patrick Wolf – Hard Times
— Phantogram – When I’m Small
— Phantogram – Let Me Go
— Portugal The Man – Shade
* Portugal The Man – The Devil
* Rantings of Eva – Bright Side
* The Raveonettes – Breaking into cars
* Rodrigo y Gabriela – Tamacun
— Rodrigo y Gabriela – Orion
— The Rosebuds – Leaves Do Fall
* The Rosebuds – Life Like
* Scanners – Salvation
— Scissors for Lefty – Nickels & Dimes
— Scissors for Lefty – Ghetto Ways
— Sea Wolf – You’re A Wolf
* Seabird – Apparitions
* Secret Cities – Slacker
* The Shins – New Slang
* Sin Fang Bous – Melt Down the Knives
* Surfer Blood – Harmonix
* Systems Officer – Pacer
* Tame Impala – Solitude Is Bliss
* Timmy Curran – Save
— Tokyo Police Club – Nature of the Experiment
— Transplants – Diamonds and Guns
— TV on the Radio – Staring At The Sun
* Two Door Cinema Club – I Can Talk
* Under the Influence of Giants – In the Clouds
* The Vanguard – And Then We’ll Dance
* Wavves – Mickey Mouse
— We Are Wolves – Fight & Kiss
Wild Nothing – Confirmation
— Wiretree – Big Coat
* Wiretree – Make Things Happen
* Woods – Death Rattles
— Yeasayer – 2080
* Yeasayer – The Children
* Yppah – Again With the Subtitles

Today I received the Amazon Kindle 2 in the mail. I bought it refurbished, for just $110 (US Edition, there’s also a Global Edition). The Kindle is along the iPad among the best book reading devices. Truth is, I don’t read much, since I can’t focus (apparently a problem that has become worse in the last few years).

So for me, the Kindle has another major feature that it’s indispensable — if you’re willing to put up with some of its shortcomings. That feature is FREE, unlimited 3G Internet access, FOR LIFE.

Unless Amazon removes the feature somehow, the Kindle 2 comes with a web browser (under the “experimental” menu). Kindle’s Netfront web browser is definitely not as good as the likes of Webkit on the various modern smartphones, but it’s still good enough, and fully operational, for basic web browsing and emailing.

Personally, when I’m using my phones via WiFi, I only browse to very few web sites, the ones that form the skeleton of my internet experience. They’re mostly general news, tech news, and emailing web sites. So by using their mobile pages, I was able to get the same experience on the Kindle as I’d get from my smartphones. I don’t feel I’m missing out here, because even when using my smartphones via WiFi, I still prefer mobile pages, for browsing speed, and lesser bandwidth consumption.

So these are the sites I generally use when on the go, and apparently they work great on the Kindle:
– Mobile.osnews.com
– i.engadget.com
– m.gizmodo.com
– m.digg.com
– m.cnn.com
– m.io9.com
– slashdot.org/palm
– m.facebook.com
– mobile.twitter.com
– https://mail.google.com/mail/x/ (mobile version)
– https://mail.google.com/mail/h/ (lite desktop version)
– This blog

My 1-year pay-as-you-go phone service with my cellular provider is about to expire soon, so I was pondering if I should get an iPhone, or a Samsung Galaxy S, along a 2 year contract with “unlimited” data. However, that would cost me thousands of dollars, when I can just go for another $100 pay-as-you-go service for 1 more year (I don’t call a lot via my cell — I still have $50 left after a whole year), and then use the Kindle as my “data” device. For the rest of my sporadic calls, I use either Google Voice when at home, or my landline directly, or Skype when calling my mom.

Would it be a better experience if I had a smartphone and/or an iPad instead? The answer is yes. However, since my online needs are not major and I don’t do a lot of calls, it makes no sense to pay for things that I don’t really need just because “they look better on a colorful screen”.

The user experience I get from the Kindle reminds me of my old monochrome Palm PDA. I was using the offline browser Avantgo with it, or my infrared-based modem (the PDA would create a dial-in networking connection via infrared — these were the days). However, the Kindle is still better: the browser is better than what we had back then, it has a bigger screen, a hardware keyboard, and a real 3G connection. And if I had bought the Global Edition of the Kindle, I’d have Internet almost everywhere in Europe too, for free.

So overall, it kicks ass. Internet on the go, free of charge. Sure I have to put up with a gray screen, but it works.

The fact that “water” is the next “oil” is not well understood by most people. They don’t realize that in the next 40-50 years water will be so expensive, that many will perish for not having access to it — just like they do today in Africa.

In fact, many people think that Africa doesn’t have clean water because “there’s no water there, it doesn’t rain often”. This is a huge mistake. The reason why Africans don’t have potable water is because all their clean water is sold to corporations by their governments (in order to pay national debt). The water is pumped out and sold back to Africans for a stupendously high price. Africans are poor (for similar corporation-theft reasons), and so they simply can’t afford to buy clean water. So they have to just use whatever dirty water they can find near their villages.

This is what is going to happen to Greece in the next 30 years too. I remember when I was a kid that the river Acherontas was full of water, even in Summer. These days, it only has a few streaks of water in it, and very few eels/fish survive. When my mom was a kid she remembers even more water in that river!

Greece has already water shortages during summer, but things are going to get worse. The government has put on sale its water stakes in order to pay for debt (exactly what happened to African countries).

Water shortages happen because of dams which disrupt the flow and flora, over-consumption, bottling & exportation, de-forestation, and because of city asphalt, which drives water to the sea instead of its natural cycle of soil/clouds/soil. This makes the planet a DESERT. In a few years Greece will officially be a desert. But it doesn’t stop there. Because there is no water anymore under the soil, the Earth’s crust cracks. And when that happens, big earthquakes happen. And big sinkholes too, out of nowhere.

We are killing our planet and ourselves. If this continues, one of the first “developed” countries that will die in the upcoming “World Water Wars”, is Greece.

A few months ago there was an uproar in Greece about the prospects of selling Greek islands in order to pay for debt. I can tell you right here that selling a few small Greek islands is MUCH MORE APPROPRIATE than selling even more water to the big water corporations (the biggest ones are Vivendi, Nestle (Κορπή), RWE, Suez, Thames Water, Coca Cola (Άυρα), and Pepsi). In fact, most of the existing water contracts should be canceled, or re-written.

Greeks, visit your local government representatives. Ask them to not sell the Greek water. Do they want to privatize other parts of the system, e.g. Olympic Airways? Part of the health care system? That’s cool, I’m all for capitalism. But don’t do that with the water too. The water should be a human right and a common good. Water bottling companies can continue to exist as long as they play with specific rules and they DO NOT suck dry rivers and lakes. There have to be limits in their commerce.

Everyone must watch the following documentary (in 9 parts). Don’t you dare not watch it.

Wired posted the other day an interview with label exec Tom Silverman, titled “What’s Wrong With Music Biz, per Ultimate Insider”. In this blog post I will try to show why the guy is wrong. And too late.

Tom basically advocates that the solution to the music industry’s decline is this: setup new LLC companies for each artist, and share everything 50-50 with the artist from the profits. The difference with the old model is that the artist now will be supposedly receiving more money, and because everyone in that company will work together, and towards a single goal, the career can be crafted more carefully.

On the surface, it seems that Tom wants to help the artists and the labels by creating a situation that’s more fair. And that’s a step in the right direction. However, what Tom fails to realize is that the world is changing towards not needing labels at all anymore. He’s trying to save his business, in a world where his whole profession is going to go extinct.

When Tom was asked about why Sweden was the ONLY country in the world with sustained physical sales, he said: “If it were the music, you’d know that there were three groups that were all the equivalent of Abba that came out last year, but there were not. […] Where are the Swedish numbers coming from?”

And that’s Tom’s big problem to gasp the truth: he thinks in terms of super-stars. He believes that if there are no super-stars, there are no sales. If Tom knew anything about music today he’d know that the most innovative country in terms of music today, apart from the USA, is Sweden. Here’s a country of just 9 million people which has had over 30 major acts in the indie scene last year. Acts that made the jump to this side of the pond too. They might not be in the Billboard top-5 like ABBA got in the ’70s, but they are many, and they are leaving a mark. A mark that actually influences a lot of US musicians. As I wrote on Twitter a few months back: the Swedes are coming. Be aware of the Swedes. They know how to write NEW, good, music. And they’re having Pitchfork’s blessing too. All this innovation makes the Swedish people go out and buy music. Because the bulk of their music is good.

Tom said: “Back in the early ’80s, when the cellphone was first invented, there were more artists breaking on their own, with no technology, than they are now, with technology.”

This is not true. Back then you were either with a label, or you didn’t exist. You’d be lucky if you could work on weddings or in cruise ships.

Tom said: “80 percent of all records released are just noise — hobbyists”.

So we rather limit art creation and personal expression just so Tom can have a yaught and no competition?

“Who uses Photobucket and Flickr? Not professional photographers — those are hobbyists”.

FlickR has some amazing pictures in it, some of them better than pro photographers. The part that Tom fails to understand is that technology has made musicianship a COMMODITY. Just like what digital cameras did to the photographic art (both my brothers in law did not use pro photographers for their wedding for example).

“79,000 releases that sold under 100 copies. Under 100 copies is not a real release — it’s noise, an aberration.”

So you’re saying that these ~5 million copies should not be counted in the overall sales numbers of the music industry? Because these guys are not part of your industry?

“I guess you could put toxic gases in it and maybe that would change the environment. I guess what they do in China is they find a way to filter it, to prevent certain kinds of sounds from going through. That’s a way that they could change it. Deep packet inspection could possibly change the fluidity or the transmission properties of the medium.’

Wo-wo-wo… If I’m reading this correctly, Tom says that free or indie music should be filtered out from the consumer. And bringing China into the discussion, it kind of makes me think that he would love to make it illegal for people to give away their music, or even release it! And of course I’m saying this with the context of the recent ASCAP bullshit happenings, where they want to kill Creative Commons!

And this is a major point. First, the labels went against the consumers. When this failed, now they go against the real competition, the indie artists. They figure, if they can stop music from ever being free or easy to make, or easy to market, people will have to buy again from a limited selection of artists.

Nice try.

“The songs on Susan Boyle’s record are forgettable, and her performance is just okay. There are a million singers who can sing that well at least. It’s just the story that sold it.”

Here we go again with the star system. Tom seems “jealous” of the Boyle phenomenon. Boyle is just that, a phenomenon. Boyle is not an artist. She is just someone with a nice voice, and that’s it. Indeed, what sold her records was the story behind it. However, we should not forget that the human race gets smarter with every passing day. People I socialize with, usually software engineers, don’t listen to Boyle. Not only they don’t listen to her, but they don’t bother with her. They don’t watch her on Youtube, and they definitely don’t buy her record.

Maybe today a good story still sells. But for how long this will last? Young people are getting over the star-system. They’re getting over the drama sold by Hollywood. They don’t care if Lohan will go to jail, and they don’t buy her music either. Instead, they buy music from some obscure Brooklyn band, with no “story”.

Sure, sometimes I do read Perez Hilton myself, but only to laugh at these idiotic actors and singers who have everything one would ever wish and they still manage to screw up their lives. Rest assured I don’t buy their movies or their music. I read Perez’s site the same way I read the LOLcats site.

So again, hunting “the next Boyle” will only get you so far. Maybe it will give you another 10, or 50 years of business. But it’s not a sustainable strategy for the long run either. Simply because you can’t base your success on selling the personal stories of people, and the ignorance of the consumers. At some point, consumers will get smarter, and will simply demand better music rather than a good story.

This is why all the American Idol artists have failed and have lost their contracts. Because none of them was a real artist. They were singers, who were given pre-cooked songs to sing, and all they were selling was image. Well, this doesn’t work in the new world order anymore. Not among my kind of people anyway. And we’re getting more and more everyday.

Silverman’s proposal is too little too late. The idea of setting up an LLC for each act is not a bad one, but getting 50% off of it for setting it up is. Sure, venture capitalists have similar percentages when they invest to start-ups, but there’s usually some serious, expensive technology involved in that case. In the case of music, everything is relatively cheap. A new artist doesn’t need more than $250k to break it if he’s good (this includes staff, van, instruments, album mastering, booking, distribution, PR/marketing). And if an artist can work his way around on a few things, the only thing he might need is PR (e.g. Blitzen Trapper in 2007). Nothing else. Music videos you say? I shot at least three good music videos for $0, so I know what can be done with limited resources.

It’s interesting that Silverman is proposing this idea now that CD sales are down. You see, today, the only way for an artist to make money is to tour. So Silverman is now trying to get some of this touring money too, before it’s too late too. I’m pretty sure the artist will still be screwed at the end, especially if he’s not very successful.

So what’s the solution?

As I explained in the past, there is no solution. The music industry will die. But music won’t die. Hobbyists will carry the trends alive. But there won’t be “stars” anymore. Most of these artists will give away their music for free, and the best ones will also tour, and make a modest living out of it. The rest, will just record on their leisure, from their bedroom or their mother’s basement, release these works for free, and they will make sure they won’t stay up too late, because there would be lots of work at the office tomorrow.

No, this new world order won’t make music quality worse. Many popular acts today started off by recording, mixing and mastering their shit on their bedroom (again, Blitzen Trapper comes to mind, Wavves, Wild Nothing, Memory Tapes, Deerhunter etc). Also, technology will evolve to find easily the type of music we want to hear: just like FlickR makes it easier to find specific pictures. But the labels, and paying for most music, are concepts that will disappear. It’s rather simple, really.

I suggest to Tom to get out of this industry as there’s still time. Sell the company, move to a nice home in the suburbia, live the rest of your life happy with your family, get a hobby, and invest again only if you have to.

…so far, in my opinion:

ALBUMS:

1. Broken Bells – Broken Bells
2. Wild Nothing – Gemini
3. Phantogram – Eyelid Movies
4. The Morning Benders – Big Echo
5. Beach House – Teen Dream
6. Surfer Blood – Astro Coast
7. 22-20s – Shake / Shiver / Moan
8. Neon Trees – Habits
9. Yeasayer – Odd Blood
10. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor

Most over-hyped:
1. Vampire Weekend – Contra
2. The Black Keys – Brothers
3. MGMT – Congratulations

Biggest disappointment:
1. Blitzen Trapper – Destroyer of the Void

Fun fact: Broken Bells’ and Wild Nothing’s albums are the only albums where ALL the tracks have 5 stars ratings from me. There’s not a single weak track in these two albums.

TRACKS:

1. Beach House – Norway
2. Broken Bells – The High Road
3. Wild Nothing – Confirmation
4. Surfer Blood – Harmonix
5. 22-20s – Latest Heartbreak
6. Phantogram – When I’m Small
7. Scanners – Salvation
8. Tame Impala – Solitude Is Bliss
9. Laura Veirs – Wide-Eyed, Legless
10. Neon Trees – In the Next Room

Runner up:
Ke$ha – Take it Off [I’m serious, it’s a great dance track]

Fun fact: When I first heard Beach House’s “Norway”, I hated it. In fact, I tweeted about how much fucked up it was (I made a joke about their “broken keyboards”). Now, every time I hear it, it wakes up my romantic side and almost makes me cry.

The brand new Sony PS3 firmware that was released tonight comes with a built-in video editor. It is able to edit in real time HDV, AVCHD, and [almost] dSLR h.264 footage.

First, you have to copy your video files in the internal hard drive. If you already have video files there, you will have to re-copy them, because the files must be copied with firmware 3.40 or newer (this firmware copies more needed attributes).

HDV and AVCHD files will work out of the box. If your footage is dSLR/digicam MOV h.264 files, then you must pass them via a re-wrapping utility, to make them MP4. Take note, this is NOT a re-encoding. Re-wrapping simply changes the container from MOV to MP4, without re-encoding. It’s done in mere seconds, and it has zero loss in quality. I usually do mine with Quicktime Pro, or MPEG Streamclip, or a DOS script utilizing ffmpeg, or mp4box and mencoder.

The easiest way is with MPEG Streamclip, but it doesn’t save the audio along. Google it, download it, install it, load it. Then click “List” from its menu, “Batch list”, “Add Files…”. Using your mouse or the SHIFT key in your keyboard, select all the files you want re-wrapped from MOV to MP4. Select “Open”. In the next dialog that pops up, select “Save As” from the drop-down menu, then the “Ok” button. Then select a folder to save the new MP4 files, and click “Ok” again. From the new dialog that pops up, select “MP4” from the drop-down menu, and then “Ok”. Then, select “Go” from the main dialog, to begin the re-wrapping process.

If you do want to keep the video’s audio, use Quicktime Pro (exporting the files one by one: use the MPEG-4 exporting option, and use “passthrough” for the video, and AAC 192 kbps for audio), or write a batch script that uses FFmpeg (e.g. ffmpeg -i input.mov -vcodec copy -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -ar 44100 -ab 192k output.mp4).

Then, copy the created .MP4 files on your PS3. I do it via the TwonkyMedia UPnP server, but you can use an SD/CF card too, or a burned DVD disc (with your files in it, not DVD video), or another DLNA/UPnP server.

Then from the “Video” XMB PS3 menu go up, and find the Video Editor option. Create a new project and “Add” your video files in it. Then follow the on-screen instructions to edit the videos. Usability is not stellar, but it works, and it’s super-fast. There are about 15 pre-installed music tracks to select from for your video, and there’s a text, and speed-up/slow-motion ability too.

At the end, you’re given the option to create a new MP4 file, or to upload to Youtube/Facebook. Unfortunately, we’re not given the opportunity to export to HD. All uploads are in 640×480 resolution, at 29.97 fps. For widescreen videos, the 1.333 aspect ratio is attached to the VGA resolution. The PS3 and the VLC players support that aspect ratio flag, and your widescreen-edited video will playback in widescreen, but Quicktime won’t recognize the flags and it will display your video squashed. I haven’t tried Youtube/Facebook about if they recognize the widescreen flag properly. Leave a comment if you tried it.

Quality of the saved video is very good: 2 mbps h.264 MP4, and 128 kbps AAC. It’s at least DVD quality. And exporting is very fast: 40 seconds of my edited video, took only about 30 seconds to encode!

Anyways, if Sony gives us the ability to export at different resolutions, frame rates, bitrates, and possibly add the [dreaded] support for the MOV container and the Canon audio dSLR/digicam format, they’ll have a winner. But even as it is now, it can really be of much help to people who have a camera and a PS3 but no video editor on their PC, or their video editor is too slow for their camera’s format. The PS3’s CELL CPUs really fly in video editing.

Update: Obviously the following is not a great diet. Paleo/Primal is where real health lies.

Since my husband lost so much weight recently by following a loose version of the South Beach diet, a lot changed: we planted a garden, trying to grow our own vegetables, and I started following a similar food regime as well: a lower carb diet, with more vegetables in it. Doing so even helped my health issue somewhat: instead of getting sick every second or third day, it was reduced to once a week. Obviously an improvement.

JBQ and I have been joking that the traditionally accepted food pyramid is one of the reasons that America is obese. Also, I was reading lately that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world. Cretans are among the peoples with the best health in the world, apparently.

In fact, prior to 1985 (the ’80s was the decade that Greece became “modern”), I don’t remember anyone in my vicinity to die of cancer. And yet, as time goes by, I hear of cancer for people I know in Greece more and more. In the olden days, that was something very rare. I personally attribute a good chunk of the blame to the food changes. Back in the day I remember myself eating wild or other vegetables, and beans, 6 days out of the 7. We usually had meat every Sunday. Then, the ’80s came, a lot of the EU “free money” was spent (in good and bad ways), and everyone started eating more meat, and more junk products.

Now, don’t get me wrong. We probably had a protein deficiency back then (although some of the vegetables we ate, like wild amaranth, were rich in protein too). But the point remains, I feel that our diet back then was better than what it is now. Less crap in the shelves (hell, there were no shelves).

So in the last few days I tried to create another food pyramid, one that I personally believe is more proper for hommo sapiens (no, I’m not a dietitian or a doctor btw — just a good observer). A pyramid that takes into account the ancient people, and the way they evolved, the new theories about bad carbs (that now are getting proven, I was reading recently), the studies about how good olive oil is, and how I felt way back then, and now. Basically, this food chart is a mix of personal experience & knowledge — which could be way off, but so far, it works for me: I’ve lost weight, and I feel healthier.

Much healthier than my very-low-calorie diet (if you remember that one, which I blogged about it too). At the end of my VLCD I lost half of my hair. And I was always hungry throughout the 3 months I managed to live at 900 calories a day. With this new diet (which is not an actual weight loss diet, but a lifestyle change), I eat like a cow — and I lose weight.

Some clarifications:

– The basic principle is: don’t overdose on anything. Even when we have to eat vegetables every day, have a selection of veggies, not a full plate of the same vegetable. Our progenitors didn’t have a giant broccoli for lunch. They most probably had a bit of this, and a bit of that, whatever they could find. Therefore, we evolved in a way where overdosing EVEN for “good” foods is probably bad for us.

– You noticed that I don’t value wheat/corn products a lot. That’s for two reasons: First, flour products are not exactly natural. You can’t find flour in the wild, you will have to make it, after heavily processing it (and processed food is not very natural). Also, we can get their minerals and vitamins from other sources too. Plus, there’s a high-fiber bran cereal in my chart, which can offer all the vitamins and gluten one needs. I started eating this cereal. It’s very good, except the added aspartame. Alternatively, go for added-fiber wholewheat bread. But avoid pasta — wholewheat of not. Pasta is even more processed, and it’s impossible to eat in small quantities (spaghetti bolognese would look silly without enough pasta in it).

– Regarding animal meat, the best would be eating it only once a week. But I think my JBQ likes his steaks, so it’d be difficult to not cook it more for him. Fish 2-3 times a week is a must though, I’d say.

– Regarding sugary products, e.g. desserts, it’s best to make them yourselves, to ensure that you’re using the best ingredients. Use agave nectar instead of actual sugar, but still, not very often. There’s no better dessert than a fruit salad (add a bit of natural orange juice), or a smoothie (blend frozen fruits, with a little bit of natural orange juice — again, no sugar is required). All the sugar one needs can be found in fruits. So there’s no reason for a lot of added sugar, or its substitutes.

– Raw root vegetables are OK, e.g. carrots. Cooked root vegetables are ok too, but not too often, and not at high doses. E.g. a small potato is ok, but giant jacket potatoes twice+ a week are not. I admit, this is mostly a keep-the-weight-off tactic more than a healthy one though. Root vegetables are not “bad”.

– Dark chocolate is fine (75% of cocoa or above).