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Inflation Calculator
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(article index)
BYTE Magazine Archive
(article index)
Unofficial BYTE FAQ
( R.I.P. 1975-1998 )
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(magazine articles)
JSecure
(free Java applet)
ROTator
(free Java applet)
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Tom's Oscar Contest
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Recent Movies
Public Enemies stars Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, one of the most notorious bank robbers of the 1930s. Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, a famous FBI agent who eradicates gangsters. French actress Marion Cotillard (who won an Oscar for La Vie en Rose, 2007) plays Dillinger's girlfriend. With such a heavy-caliber cast -- plus others -- this movie should be a killer. Instead, it's merely average. It tries but fails to portray Dillinger as a troubled folk hero in the mold of Bonnie and Clyde (1967) or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). The romance between Dillinger and his girlfriend never quite catches fire on screen. And Dillinger's violence, even when tempered, makes us want to root for the G-men, but they aren't heroic, either. Rent The Untouchables (1987) instead.
Away We Go is a cute but substantial film about a couple in their 30s expecting their first baby. Impending parenthood weighs heavily on their shoulders, spurring them to make changes -- mainly, to find a new city in which to live. They travel to Arizona, Wisconsin, Canada, and Florida, visiting old friends and family. Each trip brings surprises as they discover that normalcy isn't as normal as they thought. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph deliver offbeat but believable performances as the expectant couple, aided by an unusually good supporting cast. The story swings from comedy to philosophy, often in the same scene, rarely losing its balance. Although the ending feels a bit strained, there's a lot to like here.
Up is Pixar's latest computer- animated feature, and it's unusual for a movie geared toward children: the main character is an old man. But screenwriters Bob Peterson and Pete Docter cleverly begin their story by showing the elderly codger (voiced by Ed Asner) as a young boy. In a rapid series of flashbacks, he grows up, marries, ages, and suffers the inevitable pains of aging. Youngsters can identify with the character and perhaps grasp that old people weren't always old. Soon he gains a young boy as a sidekick. Together, they embark on a journey to a lost world in South America, where the man hopes to fulfill a lifelong dream. Up is quick-witted, surprising, beautifully rendered, and entertaining. The 3-D version is gorgeous without being gimmicky.
The Hangover is a rollicking comedy that could have been better with less juvenile humor. Four men descend on Las Vegas for a bachelor party, which predictably veers out of control. To its credit, the movie departs from the usual formula by not showing the party. Instead, the men awaken the next morning with terrible hangovers and drug-induced amnesia. Their hotel room is a wreck. And one man -- the groom -- is missing. For the rest of the movie, they hunt for him and try to reconstruct what happened. It's a great premise and very funny at times. But too often the scriptwriters couldn't think of a joke and resort to teenage slapstick.
Star Trek tries to reinvent the 43-year-old Star Trek franchise with a fast-moving prequel that shows Kirk, Spock, Uhura, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov at the beginning of their Star Fleet careers. When powerful aliens threaten the Federation, these inexperienced space cadets and barely experienced rookies are inexplicably assigned to the fleet's newest starship -- USS Enterprise, NCC-1701. Faithful Trekkies are upset because this movie is alternative history, not a true prequel to previous TV shows and films. Despite some gratuitous farce -- how many times can Kirk get beat up without getting hurt? -- it's a good drama. Alternative history enables suspense, because you never know if a major character will be altered or eliminated.
>> See more mini-reviews, including The Girlfriend Experience ... The Soloist ... State of Play ... He's Just Not That Into You ... Coraline ... Gran Torino ... The Reader ... The Wrestler ... The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ... Slumdog Millionaire ... Revolutionary Road ... Frost/Nixon ... and many more!
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Inflation Calculator
Tom's Inflation Calculator includes the latest U.S. government inflation data for 2008, plus four alternative data sets. This calculator is a free Java applet that can adjust U.S. dollar amounts forward or backward in time for any years between 1666 and 2071 for retail price inflation, between 1914 and 2009 for wage inflation, and between 1936 and 2009 for medical-cost inflation. You can view inflation rates for any intermediate range of years, too.
New improved version 7.2.1 is available now. Tom's Inflation Calculator now has an alternative data set from ShadowStats, a private company that believes the U.S. government understates inflation. With this new data, 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 250 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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In Memoriam
Emmajean Smith Halfhill
1930 - 2009
Obituary
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Last site update: July 3, 2009
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