Interesting Links for 14-12-2012

[andrewducker]

• My brother just quit his job at Lionhead/Microsoft to be an Indie games developer. You should all go read his blog.
  (tags: games viaMyBrotherMike software )
• Mona Lisa in 50 overlapping polygons, as created by genetic algorithms.
  (tags: art genetics computers )
• The Best Movies You Didn't See in 2012
  (tags: movies )
• Testing audiophile claims

Comments

[philmophlegm]

But to be fair to the high street retailers, they have worked to educate people that for example HDMI > SCART. I remember seeing a friend's new plasma screen telly and being shocked by how fuzzy the Sky guide looked on it (because clearly satellite TV picture quality shouldn't depend on how close you are to the aerial...). Then I looked round the back and saw that his £1,500 TV was connected to his Sky box by a free SCART cable.

Again, to be fair, back in our pre-HDMI days, one of the biggest picture improvements I ever saw was swapping a cheap SCART cable for a good one (not a massively high end one, but a decent one). In analogue cables, it can make a visible picture difference, but I'd be amazed if the absolute bestest 24-carat-gold-cables-rolled-on-the-thighs-of-Taiwanese-virgins HDMI cables were any better than ones that come in a blister pack from Dixons. (Although I will concede that the very crappest ones might not stay in as firmly - this is an observation from a living room where cats frequently knock objects like DVD boxed sets down the back of the open cabinet that has the amp in it.)

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I've had two dodgy incredibly cheap cables that would just fall out, but once I discovered Amazon Basics I was very happy:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000355113&plgroup=4

[naath]

stay in better> yes, it's usually worth checking whether the very cheap thing has a failure mode not directly associated with the thing-it-is-for. So, yeah, you can get a good sound out of this cable but *only if it stays plugged in*; this amp is pretty decent as an amp, but it's only got three buttons to control it with and half of the time they don't respond to pressing.

Even though I'm crap at audio stuff I want a cable that stays plugged in :-p