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Inflation Calculator
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Tom's Guitar Cheat Sheet
Microprocessor Report
(article index)
BYTE Magazine Archive
(article index)
Unofficial BYTE FAQ
( R.I.P. 1975-1998 )
Shutterbug Archive
(magazine articles)
JSecure
(free Java applet)
ROTator
(free Java applet)
Tom's Oscar Contest
Tom's Oscar Contest
2009 results
Tom's Oscar Contest
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Recent Movies
The Book of Eli is a disturbing but well-crafted post- apocalypse movie starring Denzel Washington. A survivor of a near-future global war, he's spent 30 years trudging across a sparsely populated wasteland that was once the U.S. His lone trek is dangerous. Civilization has broken down, crime is rampant, the environment is devastated. His precious payload: a Bible. This story has strong religious and political overtones. Did religion cause the cataclysm? Is religion mankind's salvation, or a weapon for a new breed of despots? It's a compelling film, open to interpretation. Christians may like the theme, but I haven't seen such a mix of religion and violence since The Passion of the Christ (2004).
Crazy Heart stars Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake, an aging country-western singer who's once-great career is waning. Broke, alcoholic, and sick, he drives a rusty station wagon hundreds of miles to play gigs at bowling alleys and dive bars. Then a young woman reporter (a perky Maggie Gyllenhaal) enters his life. Can redemption be far behind? This movie retails every Hollywood cliché. But, like The Wrestler (2008), it's saved by good acting and the drama of a downtrodden character fighting back against the obstacles of life. The music is pretty good, too, with Bridges performing many of the songs. Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell have small but pivotal parts.
Sherlock Holmes is a silly adaptation of literature's most famous detective stories. Robert Downey Jr. could have done much better as Holmes, but he is undercut by a director and screenwriters who would rather be making Jackie Chan movies or superhero summer blockbusters. Their versions of Holmes and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) are martial-arts wizards who perform incredible feats while battling equally improbable villains. The plot twists are so convoluted that only rapid-fire explanations can attempt to straighten out the confusion during the cartoony climax. Too bad, because the Victorian London scenery is spectacular and good actors are wasted.
Avatar is the most spectacular special-effects extravaganza yet. And it's available in 3D, too. Actually, the effects aren't "special"—they are the whole movie. Director James Cameron of Titanic fame has crafted new techniques and cameras that merge live action with computer graphics so seamlessly that Avatar lives up to its considerable hype. The story is basically the same as Dances With Wolves (1990), except the wounded combat veteran controls a genetically engineered body, the Indians are blue-skinned space aliens with tails, the wolf is a flying dragon, and the unsympathetic U.S. Cavalry are corporate mercenaries riding helicopter gunships. The conflict rages over a valuable mineral on a faraway planet, with the indigenous people simply in the way. Avatar is a genuine technical achievement that has soul. (Although the villain is overdrawn.) But is it the future of filmmaking, as Cameron claims? Only in this genre. Real faces of real actors will never go out of style.
Up in the Air is the first major feature film in which the Great Recession plays center stage (not counting Michael Moore's documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story). It's about a professional layoff expert (deftly portrayed by George Clooney) who flies around the country, delivering bad news to workers whose bosses can't stomach delivering the bad news themselves. However, the recession angle feels like a plot revision, amplified with clips of nonactors who really were laid off. Actually, this movie is about the elitism of first-class business travel, fleeting affairs on the road, and the doldrums of middle age. In a role-reversal twist, Vera Farmiga is perfect as a traveling businesswoman with a roaming libido. Anna Kendrick contributes a good performance as a tightly wound young whippersnapper. The last "layoff" ultimately defines this story, but it's blunted by an unnecessary coda that returns to the recession theme.
>> See more mini-reviews, including Precious ... Invictus ... Brothers ... A Serious Man ... 2012 ... Capitalism: A Love Story ... Amelia ... The Invention of Lying ... Surrogates ... Jennifer's Body ... Inglourious Basterds ... District 9 ... Funny People ... The Hurt Locker ... Public Enemies ... Up ... The Hangover ... Away We Go ... Star Trek ... The Girlfriend Experience ... The Soloist ... State of Play ... He's Just Not That Into You ... Coraline ... and many more!
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Tom's Oscar Contest
Deadline is March 5 -- Enter Now
It's time to enter Tom's Oscar Contest -- now in its 27th year! You must submit your contest ballot by Friday, March 5. The Academy Awards show will be broadcast on TV on Sunday night, March 7. As always, the latest scores in Tom's Oscar Contest will be updated live on this website during the awards show. Don't miss this incredible event! (Sorry, participation is restricted to Tom's friends, acquaintances, and previous contestants.)
Inflation Calculator
Tom's Inflation Calculator includes the latest U.S. government inflation data for 2009, plus four alternative data sets. This calculator is a free Java applet that automatically runs in your web browser by clicking on the link. It can adjust U.S. dollar amounts forward or backward in time for any years between 1666 and 2071 for retail price inflation, and between 1936 and 2010 for medical-cost inflation. You can view inflation rates for any intermediate range of years, too.
New improved version 7.5 is available now. Tom's Inflation Calculator now includes the latest 2009 government inflation data, the Congressional Budget Office's inflation forecasts through 2020, and optional inflation data from ShadowStats, a private company that believes the U.S. government understates inflation. The best inflation calculator on the Internet just got better!
Computer Dictionary
Common Terms Defined
Are you baffled by a technical term or acronym you've never seen before? Or just curious about the latest techie slang? Tom's Computer Dictionary may have the answer. From "AAC" to "zoo virus," it defines more than 750 terms in plain language.
Guitar Cheat Sheet
Do you want to learn the most common major and minor guitar chords? Instantly transpose songs from one major key to another? Find out which major and minor chords go together? Play scales in any major key? Learn the notes on the fretboard? It's easy! And it's free! Just download and print Tom's Guitar Cheat Sheet.
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Microprocessor Report
Index to Tom's Articles
Here's an index to more than 260 of Tom's articles in Microprocessor Report, the insider's guide to microprocessor hardware. Learn about embedded processors, microcontrollers, digital-signal processors, and other chip-related topics. (Subscription required for most articles.)
Microprocessor Report Editorials
Read Tom's editorials in MPR. No subscription required!
Test Your Java Security
How safe is your system from hostile Java applets? Find out with JSecure, one of Tom's free applets. JSecure harmlessly tests the security manager of your Web browser or applet viewer by trying to access information from your computer's operating system and hard disk. Try it today!
Scramble Text With ROTator
ROTator is a Java applet that lets you encode and decode text in the popular Internet format known as "ROT 13." Lots of other programs do that, too, but Tom's ROTator applet goes further by allowing you to encode and decode text in any rotational letter-substitution format. With ROTator, you can shift the letters left or right, and you can shift them by any number of letters from ROT 1 to ROT 26.
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BYTE Articles
Here is an index to more than 180 of Tom's computer articles from BYTE Magazine published from 1992 to 1998. (BYTE ceased publication in June 1998.) Most articles are still available online and include the original photographs, figures, and screen shots.
And more stuff...
- Tom's Mini Movie Reviews. Snappy reviews of recent movies, like those in the blue column on the left. Reviews that scroll off the column end up on the Mini Movie Reviews page.
- Shutterbug Articles. More than a dozen of Tom's photography articles from Shutterbug magazine are now online. Learn how to personalize your film speed, banish dust from your darkroom, make professional-looking postcards, find the best deals on used cameras, create special effects with open flash, and more.
- Tom's Oscar Contest. An annual tradition for 25 years, Tom's Oscar Contest is both entertaining and challenging. Hundreds of people have tried to guess who will win an Oscar in each Academy Award category. Competing against them is the computer brain of Tom's famed OscarCalc program, which sometimes wins the contest and always places near the top.
- The Death of BYTE Magazine. In 1998, after 23 years of operation, BYTE Magazine was shut down by its new owner, CMP Media. A year later, CMP launched BYTE.com as a very different web-only publication. To learn the inside story about what happened to the world's second personal computer magazine, see Tom's Unofficial BYTE FAQ: The Death of BYTE Magazine.
- Tom's Favorite Web Links. Find information about personal computers, microprocessors, Java, and other technologies. There are quite a few photography-related sites, plus some offbeat places you've never been. Lots of new links!
- Tools for Web Builders. The hardware, software, programming tools, and books used to build this web site might be useful to you, too. Most of these tools are linked to their vendors' web sites so you can find more information.
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