Geoffrey Wiseman

Broadchurch is Great TV

I finished watching the first season of Broadchurch (bbc america, wikipedia, imdb, iTunes) tonight.

Sam Phillips: Don't Do Anything

For the past month or so, I've been playing the Sam Phillips album, Don't Do Anything (iTunes, Amazon, Wikipedia, AllMusic) very regularly. It's a great album, end to end, basically all the songs are good. You should listen. And if you don't like it, what's wrong with you? (Or maybe you just have different taste, I guess.)

Prisoners (2013)

This past weekend, I watched Prisoners (imdb, iTunes, amazon), and I really enjoyed it.

Luther - Season 3 (TV)

Season 3 of Britain's Luther (wikipedia, amazon, iTunes, imdb) is riveting, like the previous two seasons. The cast is outstanding, from Idris Elba on down, the stories are gripping (if occasionally violent), they aren't afraid to cut characters when...

Resogun: Save the Last Humans

My son wanted Skylanders: Swap Force for Christmas. Our aging collection of consoles (XBox, PS2, Wii) wasn't a good fit. Only the Wii would play it, and the Wii version of Swap Force has a reputation for being glitchy.

The Wii U has had a rough start, so I didn't seriously consider it. I briefly considered getting a previous-generation console (PS3, XBox 360), which would have given us access to a library of older games and probably allowed us to play many new console games for a year or two. I suspect that might have been the best choice, but the enthusiast in me wanted the PS4, and I was somewhat nervous that we might be in this same position next year with a new game requested for Christmas that can run on PS4 but not on PS3.

So after Santa brought my son a PS4, Skylanders: Swap Force, Knack and a second DualShock 4, I tried hard not to go wild and buy myself a bunch of games. I mostly succeeded.

Kaffeologie S Filter for AeroPress

When you make coffee in an Aeropress, you use a filter on the end of the press which prevents the coffee grounds from going into your cup. These filters are cheap, plentiful, and use very little paper, so there are limited reasons to switch to something...

Justified and Long Hard Times to Come

I'm nearly done watching Season 4 (iTunes, Amazon) of Justified, which I still really enjoy. Although it has clearly amassed enough of a following to make it through four seasons, and pick up some Emmy awards, almost no-one I know watches it, which...

Long-Term Reviews of iOS Devices (the iPad 1 is Slow)

John Gruber notes that we rarely see reviews of products after they've been used for an extensive period of time:

It shouldn’t be that surprising that a $200 device isn’t built all that well. What should be surprising is analysts and pundits who automatically assume a low price means a winner.

That's true. Actually, a lot of reviews are on the basis of a very short period of examination, or possibly even just on the basis of reviewing the literature about the product.

∆ (alt-J) - An Awesome Wave

I bought An Awesome Wave by ∆ (website, iTunes, wikipedia), last night. ∆ is also known as alt-J for the key combination required to produce that symbol on a mac.

I first heard ∆'s Tessellate, on NPR's All Songs Considered, possibly on The Year In...

On "Moves"

After reading some pleasant things about Moves (iTunes, website) I thought I should check it out a little more closely.

First Impressions

It's pretty. It's not overloaded with information that I don't care about but the information that is there...