Profits From Piracy?

I believe that this is my 150th post in case any of you care to know. I'm kind of surprised that it has been that long and even more surprised that I've managed to keep this habit up so well. Anyway, I posted a little while ago about how bad piracy was hurting the computing industry and The Economist suggests that those figures are overblown, and I think they're right. As big a problem as it is, the BSA was just pulling those numbers out of its ass. Another writer though goes so far as to say that piracy could help Apple! It sounded pretty crazy when I read the title, too, but he makes some good points. My main reservations with Macs are certainly whether are not it can really serve all my computing needs, but if I could try out OS X on my Wintel machine it could potentially push me to the dark side (just kidding Apple enthusiasts). The developer version of the next version of OS X has already started to leak supposedly, but I wonder if this would really help more than it'll hurt them? I guess we'll see in due time.

Moving on with the tech news though, some believe that the Apple-Intel deal may not hurt Linux because the early assumptions being made about having Windows and OS X on the same machine are premature since that'll take a while. Plus, there are price concerns. Intel has also teamed up with Nokia to work on WiMax, which they hope will be a new standard for wireless broadband technology to replace the less-than-perfect Bluetooth standard. Intel rival IBM, meanwhile, is shifting its concerns to the Community Source program, which is their way of integrating open source techniques with proprietary software techniques. It's an interesting theory of a bottom-up process and I'm curious as to how it'll work out for them. Wal-mart is not, in fact, phasing out VHS as certain reports claimed and I'm surprised that so many people still use VHS tapes. I mentioned concerns yesterday for printer ink prices and now it looks like alternatives to name-brand cartridges are on the rise, though the quality isn't the same. It's not like I'm printing out photos anyway so it's no matter to me. Lastly, there's a provocative editorial at CNN suggesting loosely that the current computer age resembles the dot-com boom, but they admit that the current key players are on firmer ground.

Not a whole lot of movie news today, but I'm going to see Batman Begins in a few hours so you'll get a full-blown review of that tomorrow. There's a better trailer of MirrorMask finally available at Yahoo! Movies and further suggests that the movie will be a visual masterpiece and a creative adventure. Speaking of stunning visuals, there are some more pictures of Howl's Moving Castle online for those of you who are interested. If you have hunger for multimedia you can also check out some clips for Bewitched over here, which I really hope turns out to be a decent film. If you want to get more hyped up for the upcoming Land of the Dead film you should check out this tribute video to George A. Romero's invention of the zombie horror genre. There's now word that famed writer Matt Groening will indeed be contributing his talent to the confirmed Simpsons movie , which is apparently on a relaxed schedule and will be out in theaters before the series ends. Poor tv series; it's really suffering. Lastly, Moviehole has a couple of creepy pictures from V for Vendetta up including this one:



Fellow bloggers may want to check out this article regarding the life that blogs have breathed into journalism. And if you're planning on going to Disney World any time soon, beware of the Mission: Space ride.

Now for the Ten on Tuesday meme:

10 Things You Wish You Knew When You Were in Highschool
10. You can't save all your friends from bitter realities.
9. You won't be able to keep in touch with all your friends.
8. Drama is the norm, get used to it.
7. The SAT is useless except for stupid college applications.
6. Learning C++ is extremely helpful.
5. Guitar classes in college as opposed to in high school are hard to get into.
4. Cheating is a meticulous artform.
3. Being a nerd is acceptable.
2. Prom is way overrated.
1. AP credits are the only useful, tangible things you get from high school.