I Am iRon Man

HOLY CRAP, STEVE JOBS HAD A HEART ATTACK (except not at all)!

Turns out it may have been an attempt to sabotage Apple’s stock (AAPL) prices. The perpetrator is potentially facing prison time. So if CNN picks up this comic and thinks it’s real, am I going to Federal Pound You In The Ass Prison (FPYITAP)?

In other Apple news, there’s been a rumor of a new Apple product called “The Brick” netting around the trons for a few weeks. Now it looks like “brick” may refer to a brick of solid billet aluminum, out of which the new Macbooks and Macbooks Pro will be machined out of using water jets and lasers. Sounds cool and all, but nothing earth shattering.

Assuming Eli and Steve did get to work on an iRon Man suit, I imagine it would have no visible seems, be incredibly light, have sub par battery life, radiate at about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and provide absolutely no protection against machine guns or tank shells. I can also assure you it would be beautiful and Eli would be fired about 3 months into the process for “not getting the vision!”

I suppose I should also mention that Iron Man is the best selling Blu Ray of all time. So many people bought it, in fact, that they shut down Sony’s BD-Live servers. I’ve decided I’m never going to buy a Blu Ray. I’m going to wait until the players are incredibly cheap, then Netflix them until they are completely replaced by digital content distribution.

Eli is going to Chicago this week (all week). If you know of anything he should make sure to visit, experience or a great place to take photos, feel free to post it in the comments. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it. Maybe some Chicago FB’s want to buy him a beer?

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63 Comments

  1. I recently did the major overhaul of my Entertainment Center and wound up with a PSP3 which plays Blu-Ray, DVD, CD and oh yeah, plays games too. At the time and maybe still now, it was exactly the same price as a Blu-Ray player. Why not? I'm a really remedial video gamer but my friends are delighted.

  3. Aw man, I was all psyched to see you steal some imagery from the old 90's Iron Man cartoon that starts off with "I… am… Iron Man!"

    Actually, I think you came up with something much better than that.

  5. The only obvious lack of realism here: the battery lasted long enough to have a conversation, even though I see he is using an unofficial '3rd party' battery. Doesn't that void the warrantee?
    Joel, may I say you are my new hero! When are you running for office?

  8. On the plus side for the iRon Man suit, it'd be able to avoid that all-too-common plot point of the armour getting a virus.

    SKRULL_1: "Why won't this virus WORK?! AUGH!"
    SKRULL_2: "He's on a Mac, sir. We were set up for a PC."
    SKRULL_1: "Damnation!"

  12. "All I had was this iPhone"

    And car battery and knife (to cut out the heart) and pan (to put the heart in) and table and…hey, wait.

    Where ARE they anyway? Steve Jobs and Eli go hiking together? O.o;

  13. I dislike the idea behind Blu Ray disks just as much as the next man (We don't need a "new DVD", do we?), but I dislike the idea of digital distribution even less. I know it is going out of style with the higher ups, but what is so wrong with owning a hard-copy? I actually -like- the extra production and packaging.

    Besides, with digital only releases, we'll end up with crap like DRM in everything, and people will lose their consumer rights to corporate greed. Mark my words!

    • I agree with almost all of that. I don't see digital distribution replacing hard copies any time in the near future, because DRM effectively ensures that buying digital is for suckers but none of the big players in media distribution are willing to change their business model.

      I have no beef with Blu-Ray though. As long as Blu-Ray players are backwards-compatible with DVDs there's no real hit to your existing library (like there was with the VHS to DVD move). There's also not a lot of incentive to move up, and I think Big Media is already finding that out.

  15. Uh, if we don't have Blu-Ray, how do you propose sticking 1080p high def video on a DVD disk.

    All TV is HD by Feb. Transfers to BR will be cheaper than transfers to DVD. A HD disk format was required to accomodate this.

  16. Couple of things: All TV isnt HD in Feb. Its Digital. That just means ones and zeros vs. analog. Max res for most broadcasts will still be 480i (DVD res). And the argument is not "how do we get HD video on DVD?" since that isnt possible. The argument is "since the experts agree BluRay will only last 5 years, should be rebuy all of our movies or wait for a permanent solution (digital downloads)?"

    Personally i dont care about owning movies any more. If I had a Netflix like service where I could call up any movie in HD, Id gladly pay $20 – $30 a month for that.

  17. Over here in the UK few of us have decent enough web speeds to use a service like Netflix, and BluRay discs cost the same as 3 normal dvds. As always, we're years behind the USA for no apparent reason.

  19. hah! Apps DO run in the background, just not the way you want them too. They dont run in such a way that you can leave AIM running and still get notification. But they do continue to run and take up resources. And you cant kill them at will. After you've opened 4 or 5 apps you have to restart the phone. Its a bit of a pain.

    • Plowing through your archives, good stuff btw, but I just wanted to comment even if you probably won't see it. Now I'm not an Apple hater, but you just verified your proclaimed Mac fanboy-ness and "If Steve says so, we must buy it" motto. You pointed out a logical reason to not buy the iphone and yet you still love the phone…we must get you deprogrammed…lol These small "bit of a pain"s are the reason I don't own any Apple products or Blackberry products.

      I meant this all in jest in case it didn't come through the text. ;-P

  20. You know… when we got the Iron Man blu-rays (before street date) I put one on in our hd tv (we have a blu-ray player… and the sony rep gives me lame blu rays to put on.. what can I say).

    It took an astronomical time to load, but I assumed that since it was one of the first gen players, that's why. Now I know it was trying to connect online to download extra content. Weird. You think it would have a feature to go 'dur, we dont have a connection'.

  21. I can testify that Giordano's has truly delicious calamari, and supposedly the scampi is amazing as well.

    As for the pizza, the deep dish at Gino's East is arguably better. Then again, the calamari's just so-so there. But if you're in it for the pizza, I recommend it.

  22. Is this Eli's first trip to Chicago, then? Cuz there's all sorts of tourist crap and museums etc. to check out if he is so inclined – like The Shedd Aquarium, from which you can grab a boat taxi to Navy Pier, which could be worth a look. That gets you a decent look at the skyline and there's a bunch of other stuff in the general area of the aquarium. All your museum/aquarium/planetarium and various other -arium type needs (if you have such needs…) should be covered.

    There's also the obvious trip to the Sears tower skydeck – good view if it's a clear day.

    Then there's food, of course. The merits of Giordano's and Gino's East have been touched upon in an earlier comment, of course. For breakfast, he should *definitely* head over to Lou Mitchell's near Union Station. Oh, and of course he should have a friggin' hot dog, Chicago style, with "everything" on it (the wife just chimed in "and don't add ketchup, goddamnit!", so there you go). Portillo's are widely praised for their meats in a bun, but I'm sure there are other viable options.

    Also, Chicago has a Chinatown – I never did get to check it out yet, so I can't vouch for its entertainment value.

    …aaand, I dunno, he could check out a comedy show at Second City.

    Finally, take a stroll downtown at night and be accosted by beggars.

    Hope that helps, and if it doesn't… well, ignore it. For more obscure tips, I defer to the locals.

  23. If Eli's a fan of epic hamburgers, he absolutely NEEDS to hit up Kuma's Corner. They've got the best burgers I've ever had in my life. The place itself is a metal bar, so he can grab a beer whilst enjoying the delicious fare. Burgers topped with bourbon soaked pears, brie, and caramelized onions…mmm.

  24. The Iron Man movie ROCKS!!! I want to see that same energy and fun in the next movie & the Avengers movie! I'm not gonna say who appeared after the end credits.
    Tony Stark is a billionaire weapons-manufacturer who blows the crap & hell out of Middle-Eastern terrorists. Would you say he votes Republican? Also, he doesn't strike me as a Mac user.

  25. The Iron Man 1080p blu-ray rip is about 8GB, so it can fit on a DVD (A dual-layer DVD holds 8.5GB). Of course it's not quite going to be the same quality as the original disc, but it is possible to fit it on a DVD. (if you don't believe me, go to any major torrent site and search for: iron man 1080p).
    I'm with Joel; I'm waiting for digital distribution to take over.

  31. Hahahaha!

    Of course, there's no way Eli has even a single bar in the cave – AT&T's signal can't go through wax paper. He'd still have better luck calling than trying to get to etrade via browser – at Edge speeds, he'll never get his sell order in.

  32. I am so jacked that you did this! A couple months ago when I was chomping at the bit for an iPhone I joked that I planned to insert one into the center of my chest, Iron Man-style.

  33. thanks for the tips…
    this is my second trip to Chicago. i just got back from Chicago Comics and i am heading out to meet up with a friend possibly.

    i am right next to the Belmount station so i am walking distance to the L.

    i will trip to keep the FB's updated but looks like rain in the future for the next tonight and tomorrow but Thursday looks clear…so that will probably be my photography day.

  34. For dogs, i would personally suggest Superdawg. absolutely amazing everytime. and you get a fine view of the extremely tall creepy hotdog sculptures with glowing red eyes. truly a sight to see.

  35. The last HE comic about Chicago (http://hijinksensue.com/2008/05/23/i-bid-one-doll…my supremely lesbian friend was visiting my then girlfriend and I before moving to New Zealand to get hitched to her lady-friend. It was this comic that informed me the reason I got eye-fucked by a Michael Moore lookalike (with a worse hair-cut) was Bear Pride weekend. That Monday started the break-up and the special hell of living in the studio apartment of the woman for whom I'd moved in the first place -while she was staying at a cast-member's place. A male cast member's place. They were official before I left town.

    Eli should go to the Duke of Perth. It's on Clark, has 90+ single malt scotch whiskies and unlimited fish + chips on fridays. (Google search "duke of perth chicago")

    The next time Josh goes, he should go to The Wilde Bar.

  43. That 8gb is highly compressed. Real 1080P video, uncompressed and full quality would be MUCH larger. The ripper gets it down to 8gb so torrenters can fit it on a commerical double layer dvd. I believe the uncompressed HD DVD rip of Firefly from 15-20gb.

  44. To me the "hit" is rebuilding your collection with Bluray (Assuming you would want to repurchase your favorites in higher quality) only to have the format quickly die. This happened to lots of people (inlcuding Eli) with HD DVD.

  49. Oh, that poor sap. Poor unlucky bastard. Finally deciding on the consumer-friendly format in the "war" and snuggling up with a nice shiny HD DVD player, only to get shafted up the hoo-hah with a spiky… um, yeah. I did the same thing. I try not to cry about it… openly.

  50. I have heard good things about them. Now I really wish we'd had time to go when we were there last, but unfortunately something had to lose out. I was not aware that they had creepy red-eyed sculptures (Dawginators?), though.

  51. I'm not against features being on the servers instead. That means IN THEORY that they could put more content on the disc. Like say… all 6 star wars on 2 BR's (one disc of the good ones… the other BR to never be watched by mortal eyes). I just think it's silly when you make your players internet capable, but don't give the software the ability to recognize that nothing is plugged in. I mean, if I unplugged the cat5 cable from my pc, it would know it has no connection, and wouldn't spend 5-10 minutes trying to find one.

  53. No, that's definitely compressed. The DVD set has 4 discs, so that's roughly 20GB. Since the resolution of 720p video is about 2.66 times more than regular DVDs ((1280 * 720) / (720 * 480)), the uncompressed rip should be around 54GB. I wish there was a comparison between the Iron Man rip and the original somewhere.

  54. The shift from geekiness to financial commentary did it for me. And the thought that Eli actually _owns_ stock, given that he's a sleepy … er … anarchist.

  56. god it fells bad to have a 3 year old pc with a DVD burner right now, but thinking, i am in the top of the world in my city…

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