Discontent with M$

I think today was the first day in a while where I got like barely any schoolwork done and instead did chores and ran errands. I should probably get back on the wagon tomorrow, huh? It looks like when it comes to disappointment with Microsoft, Paul Graham isn't the only one with an opinion. Jeff Atwood brings up the case of some developers who are sick and tired of the Micro$oft way of life. Apparently, it's increasingly common nowadays for developers to grow weary of Microsoft's anti-competitive practices and quit their products cold turkey. However, I have to agree with Jeff: this is ludicrous. I don't think it makes sense for anyone to whole-heartedly support one camp blindly. Open source software has its place in our world just like proprietary software does, and Microsoft will not disappear from our lives anytime soon nor does it really need to. Granted, they're likely to continue to lose power, but that doesn't change the fact that some of their applications are almost standard, and Visual Studio still stands to be an amazing IDE. Sitting on your high horse and dictating how the world should work doesn't change things, and fighting tooth and nail to prove your ideals by suffering with shoddy tools doesn't really prove anything. I admit that I'm kind of glad that I didn't get the internship at Microsoft because I would've felt like a sell-out, but a software developer's first priority should always be to do to his best create beautiful tools for people. Yes, I call software beautiful when it's done right, deal with it. I think this is, at the least, an important lesson in open-mindness. No one is perfect, and no school of thought is perfect, so why not mix and match?

Joost is doing pretty well right now. Not only do they have all this new content, but they got $45 million from various investors (including Viacom and CBS) to keep on trucking. Their future looks pretty bright (I guess these investors are hoping to latch on to the next YouTube), in my opinion. I like the new content (lots of great music stuff), but they need an easier, quicker way to navigate it. Clearly, their scroll bar for seeing programming on a channel is not suited for when you have over 50 items in the list.

Apple hinted to its shareholders that they may soon be seeing video rentals on iTunes. I'm honestly surprised that this hasn't happened by now, and figured that it must've been in the works. Seems odd to add video content to compete with all these other movie download sites if you can't even match their features. Speaking of iTunes, Sir Paul McCartney will be pre-selling his new album on iTunes, the first of the Beatles to release content on the service. Remember, Apple Corps (owner of the Beatles music library) and Apple had bad blood for a while, so getting that music on iTunes is tricky, but this is probably a good sign for progress.

We have more rumors that the next Zune will let you download tracks from WiFi hotspots and that a Flash-based Zune to compete with the Nano is also on the way. Supposedly, we'll be getting more official word next month to offset the iPhone release, but it had better be pretty damn awesome if they want to take attention away from Apple, and it had better be before the iPhone drops or else no one will care (even if the iPhone flops, it'd be bigger news, because that's how the tech media operates).

Does that not look cool? I'll admit, not the Optimus Prime fans of the series likely have pictured, but I'm still going to give props to Michael Bay's visual flare. Anyway, he put up high-res images of other transformers on his blog. I like what he did with Bumblebee, also. By the way, the original show is on Joost and is stellar (I still have unlimited invites to the beta, by the way).

Yahoo Movies has what I think is the worst trailer I've ever seen: the trailer for Bratz. It gives away like half the movie as it is, and that half is horrible, even by kid movie standards.

The owners of the rights to the Terminator series have sold those rights off, and it looks like we'll be getting another sequel. Then another. And then, one more. Do we really need three more Terminator movies though? Isn't there a point where it gets tiresome? I don't even care to see a T4, to be honest.

It looks like one of the performers at this year's ACL festival could be the next Bond girl. Up and coming British jazz artist Amy Winehouse is supposedly being ogled by the movie's producer, but this could just be speculation. Still, it doesn't sound that far-fetched, though I don't think she necessarily fits the archetype.

Lastly, it looks like Sony is willing to create 3 more Spider-man movies due to the massive success of the latest installment. However, no one has said that they're returning, so I guess re-casting would be theoretically possible. Personally, I'd like to see someone other than Tobey take a crack at being Spidey. Still, this sounds like a bad idea because they're trying to come up with ideas out of a desire for money; they don't actually have any good ideas already.

Now for a Thursday Threesome:

Onesome: Super-- heroes and comic book characters? Have you seen "Spiderman 3" yet? Will you?
I have not, but I plan on it...eventually.

Twosome: Mario-- Brothers led one gaming revolution: are you a gamer? Online? ...or is this one of those things you just don't even notice?
I used to be really into video games, but I just don't have the time for them anymore! Maybe I'll try to beat Devil May Cry 3 this summer? It's so freaking fun! If Starcraft 2 happens, I may have to try that out if it's still an RTS. I used to love RTS games.

Threesome: "Brothers-- in Arms"? Just listening to some old Dire Straits this evening: how about something new on your music radar you can share with the gang!
I just downloaded some Damien Rice (O) on Ruckus and it's really awesome. I'll probably get music from other ACL artists soon, as well.