TechTalk: Minix Neo X7 Part 1: Unboxing/Intro

For a few years, I've been highly critical of the programming that's available on TV. It appears that every channel appears to be completely full of poorly-written and shoddily-acted crap that people would only want to watch if they had scraped the bottom of the barrel in terms of boredom or procrastination. Given that I'm now in a new job with unpredictable hours, I'm hardly home to watch shows that I would actually want to see.

In order to get over these problems, most people have taken to buying smart TVs. These have shot down in price tremendously since first bursting onto the scene and are often ram-packed with apps to grant people access to Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and other on-demand services. Our Samsung TV, however, appears to be the most reliable item that my family has ever owned, and so we're not in the market for a shiny, bright, and exciting new television.

So, I've decided to solve these problems in my own inimitable style. Readers of my blog will know that I'm a big fan of gadgets from China [with purchases including the Xiaomi Mi2 smartphone, and a recent Ohsen 'dual-display' watch], and it appears that the new hit devices to head this way are Android TV boxes, which, essentially, make any TV 'smart', and also allow endless customisation. After months of browsing specs and checking out endless Chinese wholesale stores, I finally settled on the Minix Neo X7.

Why the Neo X7?

The Minix Neo X7 runs Android, the same Google-developed operating system that powers millions of smartphones and tablets around the globe. Having owned other Android devices in the past, I'm familiar with the system and interface, and know what I'd be up against. Android, in my mind, is quite a lot less 'restrictive' than Apple TV, and allows for a bit more tinkering.

What's on the outside?

The box is quite easy on the eye and has an aesthetic similar to Apple TV - though the platypus-tail shaped [and optional] WiFi antenna does turn it into a slight eyesore. 

Ports on the device include an HDMI [duh, how else would anyone connect it to their TVs?], an optical audio out port, three USB ports for connecting hard-drives or pen drives, an ethernet port to connect the device to your network using a network cable [or use the device as a router], a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.5mm mic jack, and an SD card slot. Phew! 

What's on the inside?

The Neo X7 sports a quad-core GPU, a quad-core processor, two gigabytes of RAM, 16GB of NAND Flash.

What else do you get in the box?

Packaged with the TV box comes an adaptor to power the device, an HDMI cable to connect the box to your HD TV, and a tiny remote to control the device.

Installation

All in all, installation is pretty simple. All you have to do is plug the HDMI cable into TV box and your TV, plug the adaptor into a power socket and into the socket on the box, turn the box on, and follow the instructions and prompts on your TV.

Stay tuned for my full review, where I'll explore the functions of the device and how well it actually works.

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The Popcorn Post: A Few Short Reviews [Seeking A Friend for the End of the World; I Give it a Year; Warm Bodies]

Seeking A Friend for the End of the World

I found Seeking A Friend for the End of the World to be an incredibly charming movie, as one would expect of a flick featuring the talents of Steve Carrell and Kiera Knightley. The film was quite refreshing in that it didn't really spend too much time attempting to suspend the disbelief around the whole concept of the world ending, and carried on in a "look, you're either with this all the way, or you might as well just turn it off now" sort of way. It was also quite nice to have an end-of-the-world movie that doesn't concentrate on overly-muscular males attempting to subvert the universe's impending doom, while everyone else runs around disobeying laws left, right, and centre because the consequences won't matter. At the heart of it, this movie depicts what the everyman would do at the end of the world.

As the end of the world is quite a delicate matter, this movie isn't exactly a laugh-a-minute humourfest, but does well to be eloquently charming at just the right times, complimenting the down-to-earth nature of the movie as a whole.

In essence, if you like an alternative look at things, and you're a bit of a sucker for a sob-story, I recommend Seeking A Friend for the End of the World. Kiera Knightley and Steve Carrell work well together, even if some of the writing does let them down at points, but the film is rather beautiful nonetheless.

7/10

I Give it a Year

I Give It A Year is just one of many wedding-themed rom-coms to have been churned out recently. Unfortunately [and, again, following the trend set by several movies of late], the movie is about as hilarious as taking seven punches to the face from Mike Tyson.

Worryingly, trailers and promotional materials describe the film as being the funniest British movie to be released in a long while - and if this is the case, it might be time for every single active comedy writer in Britain to go home and sit with the lights off to think about the sheer misery that they're creating. This would hopefully include Stephen Merchant, who reaches a whole new level of unfunny "annoyingness" with his appearances in this flick. In fact, none of the cast members shine in the movie, and most seem to be thoroughly forgettable [that's if you ever knew them in the first place].

Unfortunately, the actors aren't helped at all by the writing, which fails to entertain, and could only be described as "funny" by someone who has lived under a rock for the past decade. The lack of humour is not made up for by any discernible plot, and five minutes into the movie, you'll probably be able to guess the ending - and the producers would have done everyone a favour by condensing the 1 hour and 47 minute waste of film into just a 5 minute short.

I Give It A Year? I wouldn't give it 10 seconds.

2/10

Warm Bodies

As a result of relentless advertisement on the television, I figured I'd watch Warm Bodies, which appeared to be a zombie rom-com with a heart. The film features Nicholas Hoult [who you might just recognise from his roles in About A Boy and Skins, despite the thick layers of zombie make-up], and Theresa Palmer.

Hoult plays a zombie called R - who appears to be the only living-dead creature who has some sense of human emotion and love, who bonds with Julie [Theresa Palmer], despite being against eachother in the fierce battle between humans and the ex-humans.

Despite this rather [sickeningly] sweet premise, I found the movie to be slightly disappointing. Nicholas Hoult appeared to lack any sense of comic timing and discernible emotion within his long, dreary monologue at the start of the film, which is about as entertaining as chewing through a piece of cardboard. Unfortunately, other than John Malkovich [y'know... because he's JOHN MALKOVICH], the same can be said for most of the actors in the film. Despite some hints of writing promise, the talent doesn't particularly shine in this film, and most of the actors are quite forgettable.

Stick with the film, however, and after a while, you'll realise that the film is a zombie-echo of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [if you didn't expect that after seeing "R" and "Julie", then you might want to just sit in silence and have a long, hard think about how you missed that], with many similar themes and occurrences between the two tales.

All in all, though, I suppose I wouldn't turn away from Warm Bodies if I was forced [or asked?] to watch it, but it won't be going on my "watch again" list.

5/10

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Book Review: The Drought - Steven Scaffardi

First off, I should probably start off by admitting that, in this case, the title "book review" is a misnomer. No, I haven't sunk so low as to ignore the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover," but I did [somewhat reluctantly] manage to struggle through the first chapter of this novel.

Having been a member of goodreads for quite a while, I am always happy to receive new recommendations on what books to add to my ever-creaking shelves next. While I usually stick to reading other people's reviews, I was met with an interesting proposition, when stand-up comedian and author [and I use those terms loosely] Steven Scaffardi, offered me the chance to download and read his latest lad-lit offering "The Drought" for completely free.

Of course, being a stingy student, and a keen fan of the lad-lit genre [which is basically chick-lit but for guys, if you couldn't guess], I would've been a fool to say no, especially to someone who had been compared to previous authors I have read, such as Matt Dunn and Mike Gayle. Before downloading any free material, however, I decided to read the first chapter of the book that appears free-to-view on Scaffardi's blog.



Long story short, The Drought is about Dan Hilles, a fallen Casanova whose charm has gone MIA, resulting in a long period of sexual inactivity. Throughout the novel, he calls upon several friends to ensure that he gets his mojo back and the magic happening. Well, he does if you can get that far into the book, anyway.

Despite being familiar with the genre, and not exactly loathing the premise, I could not be won over by Scaffardi's first chapter at all. The writing style, whilst not entirely off-putting, isn't conducive to humour at all, and simply makes the reader feel as if they're wading through treacle to get to a punchline. The punchlines themselves, once you've found them, really aren't that special anyway, resulting in a mild 'heh', rather than the big, belly, Brian Blessed-esque laughs that can be generated from most other books in the genre. [But, of course, humour is subjective, so others may take to Steven Scaffardi's jokes like a duck to water.]

Dan Hilles is portrayed as a clumsy, yet well meaning person when it comes to love. In many ways, he could be The Big Bang Theory's Howard Wolowitz crossed with Mr Bean. Unfortunately, however, he has the humour of a funeral on a wet Wednesday. His mishaps don't, unfortunately, cause the reader to feel any sympathy for him, as he comes across as a bit of a sex-crazed douchebag [for lack of a better phrase].

At the end of the day, The Drought is exactly that: dry, boring, and seemingly never-ending. From the first, utterly mind-numbing sentence [which stirs up about as much intrigue as finding a twig in a heavily wooded area], the tale [or at least the first chapter] is a work that made me internally scream: "OH FOR GOD'S SAKE. IS THIS FINISHED YET!?"
A fellow reviewer remarked that the book made her cry - I can assure you that you won't be bawling tears of joy at this novel.

RATING: 2/10 - [First chapter only. I might read the rest of it when I have a death wish.]

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Lo Reid’s Hypnotist Show: Low indeed

 

Hypnotism has always been a rather strange phenomenon to me. Although I usually pride myself on not eating up all the junk that my nearest television set throws at me, I’ve been all over the issue of televised hypnotism like a tramp on chips. 

From childhood, I remember shows where hypnotists would conveniently forget to break a spell that they have cast onto unwitting members of the public, resulting in tragic, hectic, but ultimately incredibly humorous effects. Of course, I’ve since realised that hypnotism doesn’t revolve around magic or spells of any sort, and that it is merely the power of suggestion combined with incredible concentration. Be that as it may, hypnotists still receive relatively negative press, even when their doings are not being sensationalised to almost-Daily Mail-esque proportions.

Being a psychology student, I know that stereotypes aren’t healthy, so I jumped at the chance to see Lo Reid, one of Europe’s most famous and prolific hypnotists, in a show at Teesside University on the 23^rd of February. 

After a couple of speeches from a bunch of ex-servicemen who had somehow arrived in Middlesbrough with absolutely no money [and without the necessary camouflage and ammo to defend themselves from the chavs in the area], Lo Reid took to the stage; the room filling with expectation from past show-attendees, and bewilderment from skeptics such as myself.  Dressed from head to toe in black leather, a look that suggested she was also available to hire as a low-budget Debbie Harry replacement, Reid attempted a quick stand-up routine to warm up the crowd. By ‘attempted stand-up’, I of course mean that she delivered a tirade filled to the brim with F-bombs and downstairs body-parts, held together with a few genuinely funny punch-lines.

After successfully sourcing 20 volunteers who met her rather stringent criteria [of not being idiots, too drunk, or on medication], the hypnotism finally began. To my dismay, she did not carry a pocket-watch to hypnotise participants with, but insisted that that they had to stare at a specific spot on the wall and relax whilst listening to her instructions. At this point, the audience was told to be as quiet as possible, as this would affect the concentration of the volunteers on stage. While true showmen and show-women, even under these circumstances, would not turn their backs to the audience, all I could really see was the back of Lo Reid’s aging-blonde hair style, and the dead cow that sacrificed its life to provide the skin to make the bulk of her jacket.

Once all of the volunteers were all ‘under’ [and at this point, they were not the only ones feeling ‘veerrrry sleeeeepy’], they were all made to subconsciously act out several scenarios, including being a goldfish, being a train, and somewhat bizarrely, being in their favourite sex positions; a command that resulted in one girl flopping back on her chair and not moving a muscle, and one man roughly grabbing the hypnotist and attempting to mate with her. From this moment on, the show seemed to repeat jokes over, and over again, exposing the crude humour that this country has sadly succumbed to in recent years. Candidates running for NUS Presidency ended up taking their clothes off at various points throughout the show; students hope that this is the only time that they’ll be caught with their pants down.

Other skits included volunteers acting out an Indian Jeremy Kyle sketch [which some called racist], certain participants forgetting the existence of the number 7, and volunteers dancing to Beyoncé’s hit “Single Ladies”, seemingly of their own volition. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten most of the events that occurred in the rest of the show, proving that I’ve either got a talent for repressing painful memories, or proving how forgettable Lo Reid’s show really is. 

Sadly enough, I’ve seen more highlights in my roommate’s latest hairdo, and the ticket didn’t seem to be worth the paper it was printed on. Duller than a digestive biscuit, and dryer than the desert, the show may be heading to a Student Union bar near you –avoid it at all costs. Lo Reid’s Hypnotist Show is exactly that: low.

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