The Short Version: Definitely the best sounding consumer-grade in-ear headphones I’ve ever listened to. The price tag matches the sound quality however. If you want good audio fidelity on your phone headset, you’ll be hard pressed to find something better than these. Just be prepared to shell out some serious cash.

Features:

Super small form-factor
In-line remote/mic with volume/playback controls
In-ear design
Multiple tip sizes
MSRP of $349.99

Pros:

Fantastic sound quality
Lightweight and comfortable
Small size

Cons:

Very expensive
Full functionality only with iPhone 3GS

Review: In-ear headphones usually sacrifice sound quality for small size and portability. It isn’t until you start spending upwards of a thousand bucks for professional in-ear monitors that you get good sound. But Klipsch has brought good sound to the consumer-range, albiet the upper upper end of the consumer range. The X10i have pretty even response across the audio spectrum, including decent bass levels.

There is an inherent danger with in-ear headphones. Being so close to your ear drum, is it very easy to cause permanent damage to your hearing with any in-ear design. I was happy to see that Klipsch actually included this information in the user manual, complete with a chart of the length of time you can safely listen to various decibel levels.

The form factor of the units are almost identical to the Image X5, meaning yes, they are a bit weird looking. I personally didn’t like they way they sat in my ears. Nothing that I couldn’t get used to, I just prefer the more traditional monitor style more.

The X10i comes with 5 different sizes of tips. They range from small, medium, and large in a single flange design, to small and large in a double flange configuration. A good seal inside your ear is critical to bass response, as well as eliminating outside noise and that stethoscope effect. The best option for in-ears is to get a custom mold taken of your ear, and have the headphones made accordingly. But this is definitely the next best thing. The small, single flange was plenty big for me. I wore these things all afternoon without my ears getting sore, all the while making the screeching of the subway bearable.

The call quality from the mic keeps up with the rest of the unit. My test partner on the other end of the line was able to hear me clearly with minimal background noise as I walked down Broadway. It’s hard enough to hear yourself on that street, much less conduct a phone call.

The specifications claim that the headset is capable of reproducing tones as low as 5 Hz. I’m not sure I believe that for two reasons. First is that 5 Hz is below the human range of hearing, making it a sort of useless effort. That also means I can’t really test for frequencies that low. Second is that low frequency waves have the most energy and the longest wavelengths. This means a 5 Hz wave won’t even complete a full cycle before reaching your eardrum, and you could be blasting your eardrums with all sorts of pressure you can’t even hear. Not the safest thing.

There are three buttons on the remote, volume up, down, and a multi-purpose in the middle. Depending on the number of times you press it, it will pause, play, and go to the next or previous songs. Unfortunately, this functionality only works on the iPhone 3GS. I tested a few other Android phones with various degrees of success, but nothing reliable. The volume controls do work on a Macbook Pro, if anyone’s interested.

I’m slightly amused that Klipsch warns you against using the X10i to listen to low-quality audio. From their FAQ section:

Please be aware that the X10i is not for casual listening. If you rip your digital music files using a poor compression format and low bit rate, this high-resolution Klipsch headset will uncover all the flaws in your content.

So these headphones are hi-fi enough to show the degradation of MP3 encoding, yet they are specifically designed to be used with the iPhone, where I’m sure most people don’t keep lossless files.

These headphones have a very narrow application window, but if you have an iPhone, want a fantastic sounding headset, and don’t mind dropping $350, go for it.

Product Page: Klipsch Image X10i Headset

Fastest Computer Ever (Review: Alienware Aurora ALX

Short version: The Aurora ALX is quite possibly the fastest computer I’ve ever used. It is in a word, amazing. The water cooling, thermally reactive venting system, and lighting combine to make a system that runs great, looks amazing, and has some innovative features that make you go “duh. why didn’t I think of that?” Of course performance has its price, and you will have to pay a premium price for this system.

Features:

Factory water cooling
Monolithic black case
Functional and useful interior lighting system
Active venting system
MSRP $4249.00 as reviewed

Pros:

Unbelievably fast
Gamer’s dream
water cooling is quiet and efficient

Cons:

System weighs about 80 pounds
Cooling system has a tendency to suck in dust and fibers
Costs more then my car

Full review: The Aurora ALX is unabashedly a gamer’s PC. It’s main focus in life is to run the latest software, and run it as fast as possible. The case makes no apologies about this, it doesn’t try to disguise itself as a business product, you can tell by looking at the case that it’s designed to go fast. The front of the case is smooth, with the alienhead logo prominently displayed at the top. When you push on the head, the front panel drops exposing the Blu-ray drive, gently lit by white LEDs. The bottom of the front gapes open, allowing air to flow through as quickly as possible. The top of the case is covered by a row of thermostatically controlled louvers, which open to allow more air flow as needed. It’s actually hard to get the louvers to open, since the factory installed liquid cooling system is so efficient. The side of the case are actually restrained. There’s a small window, lit from behind via multicolor LEDs (which you can control from in Windows). The whole design of the case is remarkably restrained, considering Alienware’s reputation for, shall we say, extreme design. One interesting feature is the addition of a small, pressure sensitive button on the back of the computer near the card slots. If you push this button (regardless of if the computer is on or not), several small LEDs light up and show you the area where you plug in the video, sound, and network connections. This is frankly brilliant, I don’t know how many times I’ve been crawling under a desk wishing for a flashlight while plugging everything in to get the thing up and running. These little LEDs are in other places as well. Taking the side of the case off reveals not just the extremely well routed wires and hoses, but also another one of these small buttons. Pushing on that button lights up the entire inside of the case, making it incredibly easy to see what you are doing while hooking up and routing said wires, connectors, and hoses. Again, a brilliant inclusion in design, that I wish more PC makers would use. After mentioning how much I liked these lights to my contact at Alienware, I was told that both sets of lights run off of a rechargeable battery.

Hardware configuration:
Intel Core i7 975 Extreme (3.33GHz, 8MB Cache)
Dual ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB video cards
6GB of RAM
2x 1TB Hard drives, running in a RAID0 configuration
Cosmic Black ALX case, with 875 watt power supply

You can see why this system is so fast after looking at the specs. To give you some hard numbers, running at 1680×1050 @ 120Hz, AAx8, and Ultra High on all options, the average FPS in the Far Cry 2 “Ranch Long” benchmark was 63 FPS. It peaked out at 139 FPS, and dipped down to 25 FPS at the slowest point. Crysis averaged 35 FPS during the “Island Time-demo”. Very respectable. From a purely organic viewpoint, I’m happy to report that any game I threw at the ALX ran perfectly, and incredibly smoothly.

The Good: the Aurora ALX is a great machine. It’s a gamers dream, and it’ll run anything you throw at it with no problem. The water cooling keeps the temps down while running quiet, and the thermal venting is really cool. The LED lights are cool, but you can shut them off if you are so inclined.

The Bad: The price. Let’s be honest, not a whole lot of people have $4500 to drop on something like a PC, particularly these days. If you do though, this is the machine to get. It’s also really really heavy. Liquid cooling and an 875 watt power supply do not make for a light weight computer. I also noticed that because it is liquid cooled, it seems to pull in more dust and fibers then an air cooled system.

Bottom line: if you can afford it, buy it. The Aurora ALX is a great machine. I’ve really enjoyed my time “reviewing” it (meaing playing Far Cry 2, Crysis, and Borderlands) and will be sad to see it go back to Alienware. Particularly because my wife will expect me to help out around the house again since I’m not busy doing work.

Product Link <<

Chicken Bolognese

Ali Lone

Total Time: 40 min

Ingredients

U.S.

Metric

12 ounce(s) linguine or fettuccine
4 teaspoon(s) olive oil
1 pound(s) ground chicken breast
Salt and pepper
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 medium stalks celery, chopped
1 large (10- to 12-ounce) onion, chopped
1 clove(s) garlic, crushed with press
1 can(s) (28-ounce) crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup(s) reduced-fat (2%) milk
1/3 cup(s) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup(s) loosely packed fresh parsley leaves, chopped

Heat large covered saucepot of salted water to boiling on high. Add pasta and cook as label directs.
Meanwhile, in 12-inch nonstick skillet, heat 2 teaspoons oil on medium 1 minute. Add ground chicken to skillet; sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook chicken 8 to 9 minutes, or until it is no longer pink, stirring occasionally. Transfer chicken along with any juices in skillet to medium bowl.
To same skillet, add remaining 2 teaspoons oil with carrots, celery, onion, and garlic; cook 10 to 12 minutes or until vegetables are lightly browned and tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in tomatoes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; heat to boiling. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in cooked chicken and milk; heat through.
Reserve 1/4 cup pasta cooking water. Drain pasta and return to saucepot; stir in sauce from skillet, Parmesan, parsley, and reserved cooking water, and toss to coat.

90 million Windows 7 licenses sold. Were you one of them?

Yup, 90 million Windows 7 licenses sold. I think that means we can call it a success.

Microsoft made the announcement this week at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Telecom Conference in San Francisco. The company’s CFO, Peter Klein, said the operating system has “terrific momentum.” What he should have said is that Windows XP came out in 2001, and people were waiting for a functional, new operating system from Microsoft since then. Clearly Vista, released in 2007, was the flop of all flops, even if it wasn’t nearly as bad as you’d be led to believe. Bad, but maybe not that bad, you know?

And yes, I was one of those 90 million licenses—Windows 7 Home Premium has served my gaming PC quite well. I’m still a Mac guy at heart (meh, I guess, I’m not a zealot or anything!), but Windows 7 does the job quite nicely.

Playing both sides: Nokia sold monitoring equipment to Iran

Nokia Siemens makes lots of mobile networking gear. Most of it provides the connectivity we use every day. But they also make and sell equipment to monitor that connectivity. Such devices are required in the U.S. and much of Europe for law enforcement purposes, and Nokia no doubt makes a pretty penny selling this monitoring equipment to various governments. New details have emerged recently that Nokia sold the same gear to Iran, where the government used it not for law enforcement purposes but to silence dissent. Big surprise!

Nokia’s not alone in this practice of playing both sides of this issue: Cisco sells gobs of equipment to China for their Great Firewall; and plenty of other companies sell stuff to dictatorial regimes in the pursuit of profits. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Ars Technica has a thorough story about the monitoring equipment, and Nokia’s claim that they did nothing wrong after the EU Parliament harshly reprimanded them.

3D Is Going to Ruin Movies For a Long Time to Come

Maybe not forever, but at least for the foreseeable future. After Avatar and Alice In Wonderland it appears that directors have chosen to play with their new bag of gimmicks rather than, you know, bother with a compelling story.

I saw Alice earlier this week, and it is a stunning work of filmmaking. The characters populate a fully-realized and lush landscape that is, in turns, beautiful, frightening, moody, and delightful. You will want to live there, it's that spectacular. Just the Red Queen's castle alone is a Burton-esque masterpiece of gorgeous asymmetry, spindly spires, and towering menace. And the audience will be fully immersed in a foreign and fantastical landscape. But it's 3D realness is populated with 2D characters. They're less actual personalities than lots of paper dolls positioned in an ever-changing diorama. Alice and her gang of wacky cohorts (including Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, who employs more accents than a cocktail party at the UN) are little more than functionaries for a story that is barely there. By the time they work their way to the final battle with the Jaberwocky (who looks suspiciously like Marvel's Fing Fang Foom), it's hard to care what actually is happening while simultaneously being spellbound by the visual intricacies of the affair.

Avatar had the same problem, and it might win a damn Oscar. James Cameron's Na'vi adventure is a revolutionary piece of cinema in that it uses new technology to create something we've never seen before. When our grandkids are watching 3D solid-light holographs, this will be remembered as a landmark on the way to getting there. But the story is a heavy-handed, overly-didactic predictable mess that cobbles together elements from so many previously-told tales that it should be nominated from the Best Adapted Screenplay.

Such is the problem with 3D. It is so mind-numbingly amazing that narrative storytelling hasn't caught up with the technology. The corporate screenwriting borgs are so busy trying to come up with plot devices to highlight all the newfangled whoosiwhatsits—objects being hurled at the audience, flying sequences, falling leaves, glowing Venus Flytraps—that no one is really bothering to tell a tale. The audience will let them get away with it too, their mind clouded and their retinas dazzled by the computer animated squiggles of so many creative minds. They'll keep plopping down their 12 16 dollars without caring about anything other than the spectacle. To be fair, Coraline was a great piece of animation with a lovely story. But it's the exception, and it proves how far 3D has to go.

Eventually our champion 3D movie will come. I wish it would be Clash of the Titans, but, like the original, it will probably be a lot of camp gussied up with some incredible graphical enhancements. We're probably going to have to wade through the empty calories of years of eye candy before someone gets it right. And until the novelty wears off, we'll be swapping our brains for a pair of cheap plastic frames.

Send an email to Brian Moylan, the author of this post, at alee555@live.com

The Complete Guide to Winning Your Oscar Pool

Hollywood's big gay Olympics are approaching, and the annoying "film buff" in your office is probably pestering you to enter his Oscar pool, which he's convinced he's going to win. We want you to beat the ittle nerd. Here's how!
Well, ha, OK. So all of this guessing. You cannot hold us to any of these GUESSES. Enter Randy's stupid pool at your own peril! These are but one blog's mere opinions. All liability is waived or whatever. In case you want to disagree with us, full list of nominees is here.
Sound Mixing
No one, not even sound mixers, know what this category is. It has something to do with how that one thing sounded in relation to that other thing. Usually a big special FX movie wins this shit, so let's say... Avatar
Sound Editing
The fuck? There's another one? Yes, we all make Sound jokes every Oscar season, like clockwork. And then we make them again because there are two Sound categories. This one is about piecing sound together or something. Because of all the big booms, let's say The Hurt Locker takes it.
Visual Effects
Bryan Brown's favorite category, these are for all the magic CGI things that movie wizard-nerds are always cooking up in their Sun Chips-scented lairs. There's no way Avatar won't win this thing, right?
Short Film, Live Action
The Culture Vulture blog over at New York magazine did a kindly write-up about the shorts this year, and they think somethin' name'a Instead of Abracadabra is going to take this beautiful prize. We think it's going to be The Door, because that is about Chernobyl and that is sad and what Academy voter doesn't like sad?
Short Film, Animation
The Vulture kids say it's A Matter of Loaf and Death, because Adam Moss really likes puns. And we agree. Mostly because of its Wallace & Gromit pedigree.
Makeup
The nominees for this are weird. An Italian movie about Italian politics. Star Trek, a nerd fantasia about lens flares. And The Young Victoria, that movie that Diane the HR assistant saw and wouldn't shut up about for a week because it made her feel really artsy and British and different. Well, I hate to tell you this, but Diane is right. We think The Young Victoria will get this, mostly because Emily Blunt wasn't nominated and this is how the Oscars say they're sorry.
Documentary, Short
Jesus on a Thursday, who the hell knows. Because it sounds sad and topical, let's say The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.
Documentary, Longer & Boringer
There are a few high-profile docs here — The Cove (about dolphin-killing Japaneseses and their sworn mortal enemy, Hayden Panettiere), Food, Inc(about why you are fat and/or dead), The Most Dangerous Man in America(about how America lied to you) — so it's a tough race. But because everyone likes to eat, let's go with Food, Inc.. It was good! Yes it was, Foer. You shut up.
Original Score
Why Marvin Hamlisch wasn't nominated for his didn't-know-he-was-making-fun-of-himself tunes for The Informant! is beyond us. But he wasn't, so we must press on. We like Michael Giacchino's Up score for this category. He won the Golden Globe and he makes such scary trombone music for Lost. So he deserves it.
Original Song
Well, Disney will basically hurl itself off the top of Big Thunder Mountain if something from The Frog Princess doesn't win. Which is sad, because we like Disney sort of, and they will soon be dead splat down on the asphalt, sending park guests running and screaming but still clutching their Meat-On-a-Sticks. Because"The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart is totally taking this one.
Costume Design
In our eyes, this is between two films. The equally well-liked but awards-ignored period pieces Bright Star and The Young Victoria. Because Bright Star was about stupid dying writers and not about the royal court, its costumes weren't quite as grand. So let's go with The Young Victoria on this one. But don't be surprised if it's Bright Star. Or any of the others. We really have no idea what the hell we're doing.
Cinematography
Roger Deakins should win this category every year, because he is a genius. But he's not even nominated! So let's see. We loved the camerawork in Inglourious Basterds, but Avatar will probably sew this up for its epic computer-generated sweep.
Art Direction
Oh we're just tossing out guesses left and right here. This award is for what movie looked the prettiest. Victoria looked pretty. So did Nine. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus certainly was interesting to gaze at. Shit. Let's go Victoria, again. Who knows!
Editing
This is the award for how the film is strung together. Didja like that cut? Then you liked the editing! We think The Hurt Locker will snag this for its deft tension ratcheting.
Cartoon
Because kids love the Oscars, they've put this category in the mix for the past coupla years. This is absolutely Up's to lose.
Foreign Weirdo French Thing
Oohh where's mah wiiiine. I needz mah wiiiiiine to make le cinemaaaa. A buncha sissies from Europe or whatever made some queer little movies and then the Americans give 'em an award for it? Only in this new Apology Tour America, ladies and germs. Michael Haneke's somber The White Ribbon probably has this one in the fancyboy handbag.
Screenplay, Adapted
Though it was nice that quirky small things like In the Loop got recognized in this category, there's only ever been one possible winner. That'd be Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner's script for Up in the Air.
Screenplay, Original
It'd be nice to see Quentin walk away with this one, but we fear he won't. The Golden Globe went to the boys from Up, and we think they'll repeat at the big dance.
Su'pporting Ac'tress
If you have to ask this, you are either dumb or don't care about movie awards season (which makes you dumb by default). Hope you wear a nice dress,Mo'Nique
Supporting Actor
Hope you wear an even nicer dress, Christoph Waltz.
Actress
Ohhh a corker. Well, something of a corker. Will Merlin Streep take it for her magical work in Julie & Julia? Or will Sandra Bullock please all of Popcorn America with a win for That Darn Negro? While Bullock is riding a wave of awards momentum following wins at the Globes and the SAGs, it's still hard to imagine that stuffy Academy voters will throw their vote behind that charming, horse-tailed comedienne. It's been years since Streep has won, and she did get the Globe for comedy actress... You know what? We're probably wrong, but we're gonna sayStreep takes it by a nose. Actually no. Bullock takes it. No, Streep. BULLOCK. Blargh.
Actor
For a very, very short time, it looked like it might be Colin Firth's year. But that was monnnnths and many awards shows ago, and now it's all about one DUDE.Jeffriah Bridges, come on down.
Director
Ohhh snap! Will it be big scary Ego Hurricane James Cameron or his scorned and bitter and lonely and old ex-wife, a known woman, Kathryn Bigelow? Everyone hated Cameron's speech the last time he won Hollywood's most coveted dildo, so we say Kathy Bigs gets the gold.
Picture
There were ten nominees this year! Isn't that crazytime? Well, no, actually. There really were only five nominees, the ones also nominated for Best Director, and now there are only three possible winners. The Hurt Locker has been a favorite, but it may have suffered due to a swirl of controversy that recently appeared, doom-like, over Los Angeles. There's also Avatar, which... ugh. It can't win, can it? And our favorite, Inglourious Basterds. What a fine, fun film that was. That opening scene! But... We think the Oort cloud of bad press didn't come in time and that The Hurt Locker will still explode into Oscar history as the second Best Picture in which Ralph Fiennes dies.
So that's that! We're probably entirely wrong. Or entirely right. That's the fun of the Oscars, and all unpredictable things in life. As far as any certainty goes, we'll just say this: If Mo'Nique doesn't win, we'll eat our h'ats.
Send an email to Richard Lawson, the author of this post, at
alee555@live.com

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Hollywood's big gay Olympics are approaching, and the annoying "film buff" in your office is probably pestering you to enter his Oscar pool, which he's convinced he's going to win. We want you to beat the ittle nerd. Here's how!

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