Thursday, December 21, 2006

Looking Back on Suprnova

I really only looked through the past couple of days for missed news items, and decided that the only thing worth more than a couple of sentences was this article commemorating the second anniversary of Suprnova shutting down. Suprnova was really a big deal, I think. It was the first site that brought together lots of torrents in a massive repository for the public at large. I feel that it really brought torrents to the forefront as the next generation of P2P. What's also interesting looking back on it is that nothing has changed despite it being shut down. It ushered in torrents in a big way, and that can't be undone. Shutting down Suprnova didn't really dampen the spirit of the community, which is good and bad. It's bad that so much copyrighted content is still being pirated, but its good that companies are starting to see the benefits of BitTorrent. They interviewed the creator also, and it sounds like the whole experience was stressful. I wonder what possessed him to do it in the first place! He had to know how risky it was, but I guess he felt that being Slovenia would greatly reduce the risk. I think it's ironic that he wants to study acting in America considering all the piracy he facilitated. Anyway, not a bad read if you have a few minutes.


Apparently, I missed a fairly big controversy in my absence. Remember how I reported a rumor that the iPhone would be coming out on Monday? Well, it ended up being a Linksys VoIP phone, and there was a big backlash against Gizmodo for misleading everyone into believing it was from Apple. Brian Lam responded to it, and it appears that Linksys always owned the rights to the name iPhone. He was basically between a rock and a hard place, and people were definitely too hard on him about it. Above you can see what it would've possibly looked like had it really come from Apple. I do have some Apple news for you though: iTunes is responsible for 90% of all digital video sales. That's pretty impressive consider that it came after some of its main competitors. Oh, and Apple put up a nice Get a Mac ad finally; you can see it here (it's called 'Goodwill'). Hopefully, that'll be the last of that series of ads? If you miss old versions of software, you'll love this site. It just hosts versions of software from before they got butchered. Very cool concept! Lastly, I just have tips for you guys. One is a list of some of the lesser known features of Gmail and how to use them, including the + aliasing and controlling highlighting and such. The other thing is a breakdown of the useless background processes that run in Windows that you might want to squash. Very enlightening, and can probably result in major savings in system resources.

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That's one of 8 new lobby cards from Death Proof, which is Quentin Tarantino's half of Grind House. What's much more thrilling though is the new trailer that Yahoo Movies has. Not only is the presentation of the trailer awesome but so is the content. I have to see this one at midnight on the night of April 5, I think. They also managed to get the first trailer for Transformers. I was very pleasantly surprised by it, and my hopes are much higher for this movie. Granted, the little dialog we heard was pretty bad, but the visuals were amazing. The trailers do not end there though. The indie film King of California, featuring Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood, has a trailer up at its official site, and I think it looks pretty interesting. I hope they publicize it more though. I thought it was more impressive than the new teaser trailer for Ocean's 13. We don't know much about the movie other than the cast, so I'm not going to pass judgement yet. I did like the trailer for Shooter though (feat. Mark Wahlberg), which looks like it could be good action movie except that the trailer gives away like 80% of the plot. Watch it at your own risk. It reminds me a lot of is role in the Bourne movies though. Not much else to share. A couple of cool Spider-man 3 pictures from Premiere Magazine were scanned and put online. Nothing very revealing, but still neat. We also have some creative new posters for Smoking Aces, which I'm still really looking forward to seeing.

Now for the 3x Thursday meme:

1. Do you believe there's such a thing as a chemical imbalance? Do you think that treating these problems with drugs is a good thing? Why/why not?
Yes, and I do. Isn't there medical evidence of chemical imbalances? Our bodies are so delicate on the inside that it doesn't surprise me, and I don't know how to correct it without medication.

2. What about drugs for brain-related stuff like depression? Do you think one should be able to get over it themselves, or do you think sometimes we all need a little help, and sometimes we need meds for awhile?
I think that's a case-by-case decision. You can't say that everyone who's depressed should just deal with it, because some people's situations are different and they may kill themselves without a help from some meds. I don't think we all need drugs though to feel good! That's a crazy statement.

3. Who do you turn to when you have emotional [crises]? Why?
It depends. Often to my two favorite girls, who know who they are already, because they come from two different, yet similar, viewpoints, so it's always a good source of advice. Plus, there's my sister-in-law. I should turn to my brother more, but he's so busy that it's hard to talk to him about serious stuff when I need to but don't feel like it's necessarily urgent.

Bonus Question: Are you ready to deal with Xmas? Will you be happy or sad when the holidays are over?
Yeah, and I'll of course be sad because then I have to go back to school! The Spring semester will be better, but it's still a lot of stress. I'll admit that I miss dancing with cute girls twice a week though!

1 comment:

Jennyfer said...

It's Creme brulee. I think...

:-)

*hands Elton a donut*

You shall be mine FOREVAH!