Songbird

So I've been rejected twice in the past 24 hours (NI and Extreme Blue) so I'm looking forward to having some fun tonight at Club Element. I haven't been in a club in so long! That's why this post is coming at you so early. I stumbled upon this screencast for a piece of software called Songbird that markets itself as a media player for the Internet. It can pick out and show you any media available on the page and allow you to drag and drop it right into your library. The idea is that so-called "mp3 blogs" will have tracks for you to legally check out, such as local or indie artists, and you can even use search engines to find more music from artists you end up liking. It's all pretty legit since the idea is not like Napster at all but rather is meant to be a more intuitive way to stream media on the web. The files play almost as if they were on your computer so you don't worry about the details of streams or buffering or anything of that stuff, and it's meant to support most of the popular formats so you don't have to have lots of media players floating around. It's in developer preview mode right now (almost a pre-beta to get people excited about it and I suppose encourage more mp3 blogs), and I'd recommend checking it out simply because it's one of the freshest ideas I've seen in a while. This could potentially be big, and the fact that it's open source and can import your iTunes library is even better. If this is what version 0.2 is like, I can't wait to see what they come up with in version 1.0.

Did you know that Steve Jobs can't program? That's what Steve Wozniak claims, and I suppose it could just be a joke but he may be right for all we know. Anyway, just thought that was funny, but we do have word that Apple is looking to integrate Boot Camp into Leopard given that it has garnered over a million downloads. Defnitely a good move and something that they can use to help market Macs. Mac 360 believes that Apple pre-announced iTV (which is a move I don't think they've ever employed before) to compete with Slingbox. It's not a bad thought, but I think that it's so different from Slingbox as a product since it doesn't stream your living room to your computer so much as it streams your computer to your living. But hey, what do I know, maybe they weren't as concerned with Amazon Unbox as I initially thought. It's already clear that Jobs doesn't care too much for the Zune, but I thought I'd plug at least one set of positive hands-on impressions so as to not be too biased. Lastly, LifeHacker put up a list of great open source Windows applications, which I mention because there are a couple on there I haven't seen before but that are actually really neat.

We've received some casting news from Die Hard 4 (I'm not calling it by their idiotic title) for the villain and McClane's daughter, who was actually the bad guy in Sky High herself (saw it with my little cousin, ok). Speaking of kids' movies though, we'll actually be seeing a feature film for Fraggle Rock, for which the script is currently being worked on! I think a lot of college kids will actually go out to see that one. It looks like the Halo movie may be no more as Fox and Universal pulled out from paying licensing fees to Microsoft at the last minute, though Peter Jackson appears to still be on board. Will it get canned or will they just seek another studio? And what caused this to happen so suddenly? Very curious. Apple has the HD trailer for Dreamgirls, and I think it looks pretty good though I'm a bit tired of these music artist-based biopics. Not sure if I really care about anyone on that cast other than Jamie Foxx, but it really wasn't a bad trailer so we'll see what comes of it. Lastly, IGN has a hilarious press conference for Borat, and it's 20 minutes long but actually worth watching.

I'm going with the Friday Fiver this week:

1. Have problems sleeping?
Not often. I usually only do when I've gone too many nights with 8+ hours of sleep, which you can imagine hasn't happened in a while, or if I have to go to bed super early.

2. Last dare accepted?
No clue. I don't get dared much, so I couldn't tell you.

3. Last dare given?
I dared someone yesterday to pull one of the shower levers in Welch meant to wash off chemicals from your person, but he declined. Wuss.

4. Are you free with your feelings?
Somewhat. I'm pretty open with the people I trust, but I dont' trust everyone.

5. Tell us a lie:
I didn't get rejected multiple times this week in multiple ways.

Apple Doing Well, Will It Last?

I was really excited today to come home to a package: a birthday gift from brother and his fiance: a couple of CDs (Bloc Party and Incubus) and Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters. I can't wait to get started on this one (first essay is "Why Nerds Are Unpopular"), so expect a full review when I'm done. So Apple seems to be doing alright, if you consider a 32% increase in revenues last quarter "alright" adding up to some $546 million in net income. Not only that, but they sold 1.6 million Macs, a million of which were laptops. Suffice to say Steve Jobs won't be on the street with a beard and a can for spare change any time soon. However, ZD Net Australia had a pretty interesting editorial claiming that the gravy train will soon be over as Intel will likely not continue to give Apple the sweet deal they're currently getting on Intel chips. That wouldn't surprise me since they're a much bigger supplier than IBM and the honeymoon is almost over as so many have already switched to Intel-based Macs now. Still, I can't imagine that Apple would contract out sales of their machines to Dell anytime soon. They retain so much control by doing it all on their own and can keep things a little more furtive, and it just wouldn't be their style. Maybe after Jobs leaves, but as long as Apple keeps pushing their computers they'll be selling them all on their lonesome, and I think they'll maintain a decent presence because of how zealous their users are. How many Windows users do you see screaming from the mountains about all the cool things built-in to their computer? Still, I was rather surprised at how well they did last quarter, and can't imagine them doing any worse during the holiday season.

Speaking of Apple, someone claims to have gotten information on the phone's interface, and it sounds like the stuff we thought we'd see in a new iPod (i.e. touchscreen). It looks like they packed some neat features onto it, including iChat and interactivity with other Apple devices, but no word on how soon until we see it. This doesn't sound like it was made up, but I guess you never know. I'm sorry that I'm so weak for Apple technology, the applications for OS X are just so neat. I just picked up the new Beta 4 of Gaim 2.0 and it's really neat stuff. They need to go ahead and just call it a stable release now because they've already fixed so many issues, and this version is even slicker than before (though takes a hefty 30MB of RAM). Neilsen may soon be tracking video game playing, which I think is a little useless since people actually buy games as a good barometer for how good they are, but I guess companies want to know the shelf life of these games so that they can keep making the ones that last longer. Lastly, I just love that Stephen Colbert is a Firefox contributor and his tips for more secure computing.

Just a few quick things in movies. We have a couple more clips from Borat over at Yahoo Movies and they're pretty funny. My favorite is him trying to drink while driving and then have sex with a female driver who drives past him. This movie had better be awesome. YouTube is playing host to a trailer for Goya's Ghosts (featuring Natalie Portman, of course), and it looks like a pretty neat movie. I guess historical movies really pique my curiosity, especially when it comes to abuse of power through religion. Lastly, IGN nabbed some great shots from 300, including this one:



Now for the 3x Thursday:

1. In general, are your friends your age, or are they older/younger? If they're not your age, why go with the younger/older crowd?
They're definitely older than me. I mean I'm a junior and I just turned 20! I started school a year earlier since I was born in October. So I was really like 3 when I started Pre-K and turned 4 that year whereas most kids are already 4. Of course I'm paying the price for that right now.

2. Do you believe that age makes a difference in certain situations? Why/why not?
Definitely, but only through college really. After that, age matters much less because everyone has so much life experience by then. I think the difference between a Freshman and a Sophomore is much much bigger than between like a 23 year-old and a 25 year-old. You face so many different things at those ages.

3. What about in relationships? Does age matter? Why?
Again, only when you're younger, I think. You're just more or less at the same place in life for longer once you get older.

Bonus Question: Do you think that how you resolve conflict changes with age? Why/why not?
Oh yeah, I definitely think so. I think you become more rational and cool-headed with age. That's the trend I've seen at least. Diplomacy ends up winning more in the end with maturity.

Downward Birthday Trend

Sorry, this will be one of my rare introspective paragraphs, so you may want to skip it if you don't care. So my birthdays have been on a total downward trend for a few years now. I've probably said this before, but do you remember back when you were little and you counted the days until your birthday and all the kids at school wanted to sit next to you at lunch and stuff? As selfish as it sounds, I kind of miss that. Today was another pretty bad birthday. Not only did I only get only four hours of sleep, but I didn't finish the homework I had to do after much effort, I didn't do so hot in my NI interview, and I had to walk to the bus stop in the rain while in my good clothes (from the interview), not to mention that the week started out less than ideally. Of course, I definitely appreciate all the birthday wishes I received, especially from NSC exec (I <3 you guys), but I think my depression today was kind of independent of it being a crummy birthday and just a mid-semester crisis. I feel like I'm on a downward spiral and I'm letting myself down in my school work and I'm still not doing my best socially. I think the stresses of grades, finding a job, and being more social are just really cracking me right now, and all I want is to go back to the summer when we used to work 8 to 5 and have pool parties on the weekend (see my profile picture) without any cares of homework or trying to play the dating game. I think I have to put all that aside though and realize that you only achieve excellence through much brutality, and I still have a few more semesters of that to go through. Still, it would've been nice to just be a normal kid and go out and party on my birthday and all that stuff, and I can't help but wonder what my life would be like if I didn't care about my own intelligence or about having a meaningful career and solely enjoyed school for the ride. And I guess that's what the point of this paragraph is: is it all worth it? Sorry, I'm rambling, I'll stop now.

I've talked about the possibilities for Apple's iTV remote before, but looking at the patent there's now speculation that the remote could automatically discover devices nearby with possibly even a touchscreen (would this mean a changing button layout?). I somehow doubt that it'll end up being this fancy upon initial release, but that would still be a pretty awesome future product for them. We're much more certain about Core 2 Duo MacBooks and MacBook Pros coming out soon, and Engadget even believes that it'll be next month. That's definitely a pretty likely thing to happen, though I wonder how they'll keep costs down on the MacBook models? Meanwhile, Microsoft has finally hatched IE 7 and so it's now available for everyone to rush out and download. Of course I haven't gotten it yet because I could care less about an IE that's still behind on standards and security, but I'm glad that at least they're making an effort to improve it. Then again, Firefox 2 still isn't all that exciting, though it has some really nice additions to it. I think it's pretty equivalent to adding another 0.5 to the version number, though people were probably hoping that it would be a whole number version increase. Lastly, Microsoft has finally cracked under pressure from the EU and will be giving away software to run multiple OSes at the same time, which is quite an interesting move. I wonder if it'll be free here in America also?

Just a couple of quick movie things here. Yahoo Movies has some hilarious clips from Borat. Even in the mood I'm in, I laughed at them so I'd recommend watching them if you're at all amused by Ali G. Yahoo Movies put up the trailer for The Good German, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It has potential, but I just hope that it's not one of those movies that tries too hard to be great.



Now for a Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. What's the longest distance you've ever traveled?
However far it is to Bombay from Houston!

2. What's the longest distance you've ever walked?
Just walking, probably a couple of miles? That's contiguous walking from one place to another though, not just in any given day. I walk much more than that in sum over my average day.

3. How far away is the friend/relative who lives the longest distance from you?
I have a cousin in Australia, so I guess that would be the farthest? Then again, if you go West she really isn't that far away, so maybe my family in India? Too tired to think about it, sorry.

Some Great Ads

Most of the news today is pretty short so there's really nothing anything for me to make a main topic out of. However, I saw some ads that I got a kick out of and thought I'd share first. Sony has recently launched a marketing campaign for its new Bravia LCD television line, which seems to just be replacing their Wegas. Anyway, this full-length version of their television spot for it is pretty cool and it must've taken an enormous amount of effort to pull off the exploding paint in all those settings, especially considering that a lot of it (if not all of it, though I slightly doubt that) was actually real paint (i.e. not CG). Remember when tech ads were simpler? PC World does, and has a list of some of the greatest computer ads of the past 25 years or so. If you can't appreciate how funny their strategy was for marketing computers back before they became an invaluable commodity, you have to appreciate the completely random cameos. Where else can you see a young Bill Cosby and a much much younger Steve Ballmer? Especially great is the Commodore ad suggesting that you'll be a failure at school without a computer, and the failed Apple Newton, and the knockoffs of Apple's famed 1984 Superbowl spot. Definitely fun stuff to watch (you'll probably blow too much time on it, too).

Plextor has created a PlexEraser drive to wipe your discs clean, which is primarily useful when you have highly sensitive data that you don't want anyone to be able to reconstruct even after scratches or cracks. I wonder if this will become the next paper shredder in offices now? Ars Technica managed to get a look at Safari 3.0, which is funny because I met one of the team leads for Safari just a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, some of its updates include support for nifty features of CSS 3.0 (including resizeable fields), live search, and much more comprehensive dragging and dropping among windows and tabs. Maybe it'll be more on par with Firefox by the time I get a Mac myself. Apparently, Google will also be lending Safari a hand with functionality to be more wary of phishing or other dangerous sites, which I'm surprised they haven't approached Mozilla about. Maybe Apple is paying them or something? Speaking of Google, they're making their Mountain View office solar-powered, which would make it the largest solar-powered office in the country. Of course their servers will still be on normal power, but with a campus that's always open like theirs you have to imagine that they'll be saving a buttload of money despite the initial cost of setting up the system. Lastly, if you're tired of generic error pages in your browser, you'll love Errorzilla.

There's actually no good movie news, and I have an interview tomorrow (I know, it's craptacular timing for a hard interview), so I'm going to move on to the Tuesday Twosome:

1. The perfect autumn day and what activities you enjoy.
Partly cloudy with the temperature in the lower 70s, and I'd be either taking a nap outside or studying outside.

2. Two things about yourself that make you different from everybody else:
I blog far too much and I actually seem to feel better when I get less sleep (4-5 hours) than when I get 6-7 hours.

3. The last time you laughed really hard and why:
Nirav's plans for the UT chapter of the ACM (and I quoth, "beer and hookers").

4. Two items of clothing that best represents who you are:
Burnt orange football shirt to show my school spirit and khaki shorts to show how lazy I am to not put on full pants with a belt and all that.

5. Yourself as others see you and how you see yourself:
I think others see me as really smart and super involved, but I see myself as barely getting by and regularly losing touch with reality.

Interview with a CEO

When your main topic covers an interview with Steve Jobs, it's hard to make a catchy topic, especially one that doesn't sound Apple fanboyish. With that being said, I'm going to be applauding Steve Jobs for how candid he is in this interview and not nearly as superficial as I usually see in tech interviews (which is why I usually don't mention tech or game interviews here). He makes the most sense when talking about iTunes and that he didn't want higher prices in iTunes because they're trying to compete with piracy and raising prices would definitely feel like betrayal to a lot of music lovers after they've committed to a library of FairPlay music and an iPod and such. His answers reflect exactly what his products are like, and I think that shows a great deal of control on his part over his company, which is good because as much as hierarchy can suck, it's so vital for someone to keep a company focused. I think he was lying when he said that they didn't aim to make their products "cool," I think that marketing always works it in to their design plans. The most interesting part of the interview is when he scoffs at Zune's WiFi functionality, much like many tech pundits and webcomics have. He doesn't seem concerned at all with the Zune, and I don't see much reason why he should. I still haven't found many people day-to-day who know what it is yet.

That's not all I have for Apple though, they've filed for rights to the iPhone trademark, which means that they're either going out of their way to keep us rumoring an iPhone or that they really have been pumping R&D into it and are going to come out with it. Also, many think that we may see a (RED) MacBook from Apple, which would be really neat, but I'm not sure that they'll be so bold as to come out with a red MacBook or if it's even physically readily feasible. Still, I think it'd look hot in a fiery red. TechCrunch has put together a really useful roundup of the big players in digital movie downloads, and I definitely recommend checking it out if you're at all interested in what's out there. I can't decide what service is best right now, and I don't think that there's quite a clear winner yet like there was for music with iTunes. It's still a fledgling industry, but worth keeping an eye on. Speaking of digital media, CNet often has some decent multimedia and they've decided to create an online TV channel with decent quality for all their newest reviews, previews, and other video features. The drawback is that they're all rather short, of course. Lastly, if you never know what do when your ISP goes down, you'll enjoy this list.

It looks like Hugh Jackman is just a year away from portraying everyone's favorite X-Men character in Wolverine now that the script is done and they just have to work on pre-production. I'm always skeptical about spinoffs, but if Jackman is excited about it then I hope that this will be the real deal. Oliver Stone may be making another 9/11 movie called Jawbreaker dealing with America's response to it, and I think that this would be a horrible movie since we're kind of still responding to it. If you want to make a movie just about 9/11 or hero stories then that's all well and good, but when you're actually taking a look at something as protracted as our response to it, you have to wait like 10-15 years before you can get a worthwhile perspective. Lastly, Rogue Pictures has some clips up from Hot Fuzz, which I think could be pretty funny. It's from the same people who brought you Shaun of the Dead with the same two main characters, so that gives you an idea of the type of humor, but this time it's with cops (kind of like Super Troopers, but more British).

Before I conclude here, I have to share a really great PostSecret postcard. I think that this has been my life's story up til more recently, and I hope that I really have turned a new leaf (some of you, and you know who you are, know what I'm talking about).



Now for some Monday Madness:

1. Name 10 things you would do if you had more time.
Sleep 8-9 hours a night.
Find people to go to salsa clubs with regularly and learn more moves.
Practice classical guitar every night.
Pick up electric guitar.
Read aloud for longer to help with my cluttering.
Write scripts to make some of my computer tasks more automated.
Watch some of the great video podcasts I've been missing out on.
Clean my apartment more often.
Read the Stephen King books that have been sitting dormant on my bookshelf.
Workout independently even when I have Weight Training class.

Mac Popularity

I'm pretty tired and still have some work to do, so this will end up being a much abridged post so that I don't have to skip it entirely. I thought it was just me, but apparently others have noticed that Macs have been gaining popularity lately, and it's worthwhile to ponder why. I think there's no doubt that iTunes and the iPod have played a role in that in the sense that they've made Apple as a company cool again and has made Apple very hard to forget about, which leads people to look towards their other products. When they see how slick the MacBooks look and how slim the iMacs are, I'm sure they become very appealing. And then their switch to Intel put them in lots of news articles and watercooler conversations among geeks. I believe that they either had a smart marketing team or a lot of dumb luck with all this. To top it off, some of their Get a Mac ads have been contraversial, which we all know is an even better marketing technique. I always figure that the most important thing to selling a product is to generate excitement about it, and I definitely think that that's what separates Apple from companies like Dell.

It looks like Mozilla realized that not everyone was happy with the new betas of Firefox because they've begun accepting suggestions for version 3, which I think is an important step for them. It's quite rare for browser developers to reach out to the community like that, and I think it'll pay off big time for them in the end. Paint .NET has a new version in beta featuring a really neat Multi Document Interface (MDI) for intuitively handling multiple pictures. This is a great step for them, and I recommend checking it out. A lot of people seem puzzled over what the differences between LCD and Plasma TVs are, and now there's a rather unbiased video available to help you decide. I personally avoid the whole issue though and just support DLP. Lastly, another common question is what to get instead of the iPod, and there's a god listing of decent choices over here for this holiday season. Just be sure to research before you buy and make sure it has what you value most.

In the box office The Grudge 2 barely reigned supreme with a still weak $22 million, and it's likely to drop by a good bit next weekend whereas The Departed only lost 30% of its viewership with $18.7 million. The only real failure was Man of the Year with a pitiful $12.6 million. Next weekend should be a much more interesting one with a number of good movies includings offerings from Christopher Nolan (The Prestige) and Clint Eastwood (Flags of our Fathers).

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Weeks :: Years


2. Cough :: Cold


3. Jail :: Bird


4. Produced :: Movie


5. ? :: Question


6. Stapler :: Red


7. Next :: Please


8. Perky :: Pigs (not sure why)


9. Oxygen :: Mask


10. Musical :: Play

Early MacWorld Predictions

Someone was actually bold enough to offer their predictions for MacWorld 2007 (January 9) over two months in advance, so I figured that I'd be so bold as to talk about them a bit. One thing that everyone assumes is a surefire is that we'll see the iTV, and even he suggests this, but I'm not sure in what capacity. I don't think that we'll be able to start buying this thing in January because it's predicted that 802.11n won't be ready until July, and I don't imagine that 802.11g is powerful enough to handle what Apple wants (read here if you're confused). It's not altogether impossible or anything, but I think it's morel likely that we'll just see more of its features and a release date. iLife and iWork are more solid predictions though, as is the lack of a new video iPod. January would be a very strange month to release a product like that in, and MacWorld just isn't the right event for it. Something like that would warrant its own little press conference, so don't expect it so soon (though again, not impossible). You can be sure to see more Microsoft bashing, of course, and comparisons between Vista and Leopard as well as Zune and the iPod line. Speaking of Leopard, I'm sure they'll reveal some more features as we inch so much closer to its final release, so hopefully that'll be something to look forward to. I don't agree about the iPhone though: I've seen so many mixed signals about it that I don't think it's going to happen, at least not in January. I also don't see an iTunes 7.5 so close to the release of iTunes 7, but ringtones will likely be in iTunes's future. Instead, I'm sure we'll see more TV shows and movies available on iTunes. Yes, the future is bright for MacWorld, but Apple is known for throwing curveballs, so don't try to pin everything down. I'll keep you posted on more reliable rumors as they develop.

Some of you may have heard of this new RED campaign to get people to buy certain products from which a certain portion of your purchase goes to help fight AIDS in Africa, and Apple has decided to join in with a RED iPod Nano that looks really good in fiery red. It's an interesting campaign, and I'm glad Apple joined in because God knows they make enough profit off of Nanos. IGN decided to do a little feature comparing the Wiimote's form factor to other remotes and controllers, and I liked the way it looked in comparison to a PSP the best. It definitely looks slick, and it's a big plus that it's so small. Time Warner has come forward to take its turn to jab at YouTube for copyright infringement, but they're actually more interested in striking a deal than suing YouTube, which is quite surprising to me considering how evil Time Warner is. They're taking their case to Google given the recent purchase, and I'm sure that many other companies will do that as well in hopes that Google can better enforce a vehicle for change. I'm just glad that YouTube isn't getting sued, yet. Google offices in India are claiming that the talent pool in India really isn't all that great, mainly because people there aren't experienced with all the newest web technologies. While it's nice that that probably means more jobs for us, I think it's unfair to be so selective if the people themselves are smart and can learn the stuff easily. Nothing in programming is that hard to learn if you have a degree in CS. Congress is playing around with legislation requiring electronics manufacturers to take care of e-Waste, which is a nice gesture except that it's going to be a major pain to enforce. Why not just give tax breaks to companies that do recycle? Re-using those parts could help the economy with saved expenses, so it's good use of government money.

AICN has some fresh new reviews for us. Quint saw Babel and Man of the Year but didn't seem impressed with either. I found that kind of sad because I wanted to see both of them, especially Babel. They also got a review of Lifted, a short film from Pixar, and it sounds like a pretty fun little animated featurette. All you Old School fans should take solace in knowing that the sequel's script is still in the works, so give it some time before you hear casting details and such. Lastly, IGN has a few new shots from 300 for those of you interested.

Before I conclude, I just thought I'd plug something shamelessly. So apparently, someone at Cranium noticed that it's my favorite board game and contacted me to thank me, which I thought was pretty cool so I thought I'd mention their new game Pop5 real quick. It's more pop culture based and faster since it's a timed 5 round thing (kind of like Guesstures) where you have to do a different Cranium thing for each round within a certain time frame back-to-back. They have it online if you want to try it out, and it seems fun, though not quite as fun online since you're not playing with friends or family, but a good idea no less. I think I'll end up picking it up before Thanksgiving.

Now for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Approximately how many hours per week do you spend reading other blogs?
Maybe an hour or two.

Soup
Your community wants everyone to give one thing to put into a time capsule. What item would you choose to include?
I still have a newspaper from 9/12/2001, so maybe that. Or, there's my ACL wristbands!

Salad
What is the most interesting tourist attraction you've ever visited?
That's really really hard. I'm going to say the Statue of Liberty simply because it's so humbling to see it in person.

Main Course
If you could give an award to anyone for anything, who would it be and what would the award be titled?
It would be my friend Jennyfer for being the most fun to poke fun at ;)

Dessert
What do you think your favorite color reveals about your personality?
Not sure what blue says about me. Maybe that I used to be very blue but have grown from it to become happier?

Will YouTube Make It?

I'm pretty tired right now from my Automata Theory test (two grueling hours, but I think I did well), and there's honestly not much better to talk about today than YouTube again. Sorry, it's this or nothing! We have another article about whether or not Google can make YouTube fit their business, and I think they definitely can. People are still skeptical about it, but the fact remains that Google is still giving them a lot of control and seems to be doing little more than adding their own brand name to it and getting a cut of any profits they manage to make in the future. I think it's stupid that people despise them for making money off of other people's content because they are the ones who are hosting all of this at great expense and made it as easy as it is to upload videos and share them. So just because you could've thought of such a simple idea and make millions off of it doesn't mean that you deserve what they have now. Brilliant ideas definitely deserve great rewards. It's definitely important for them to keep things simple though and not morph into Google Video, most importantly.

AMD is calling their quad core chip design "Barcelona" and have already started showing it off and all its 128 KB L1 cache glory. Isn't it a hot, sexy microprocessor design? Ok, so maybe that's not possible, but you never know. ComputerWorld has a ridiculously detailed review of Office 2007, and it still sounds pretty cool. They still don't recommend that everyone upgrade, but I'd say that it's more worthwhile to upgrade that than Vista (though I'm not sure if the new Office will run on XP). No new version of Windows Explorer though (except for the slightly upgraded one in Vista), so you may want to look into some alternatives in this roundup. I'm really interested in taking the plunge sometime soon because Explorer is just so clunky. Lastly, Apple filed a patent for a new universal remote for iTV and it's pretty spiffy, though we don't have any pictures of the physical design so I'm just referring to the supposed features. I don't recommend reading that whole document, but the diagram gives you an idea of how well integrated they want the iTV to be, and I like that.

Only one thing in movies I wanted to bring up: the trailer for Freedom Writers. As corny as it sounds, I still think it could be good and at least a decent B teen movie. To make up for the lack of movie news, I present you with this PostSecret postcard. I'll admit that I can sometimes relate to it on days when I'm tired, but I think that blogging has definitely helped me stay in touch with things and to keep writing (and I guess my typing speed also).



Now for the 3x Thursday:

1. What's your opinion of nuclear war?
I think it's ridiculous, of course. The only thing worse than sending humans to go and fight in a war is killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians so that soldiers don't have to physically fight other soldiers.

2. Do you believe a country has the right to possess nuclear weapons? Why/why not?
No, but I think they should now only as a deterrent because they're here now and you can't uninvent such an evil.

3. What do you think of this whole North Korea testing a nuke thing? Does it make you nervous? Do you care? Why/why not?
Not really, because they've done this before. Kim Jong Il just wants to show that he has a bigger penis, that's all. He's not stupid enough to try anything, I think he's fully aware of the backlash.

Bonus Question: Do you think there will be a WWIII or something similar to it? What do you think will be the outcome?
I don't doubt the possibility, but I don't think it's all that soon. We don't have a clear threat right now like the Nazis or the Communists or anything, so it's hard to start a World War out of anything right now. Who would we be fighting? The terrorists?

DVD Retailers Get Defensive

So I have a huge Automata Theory test tomorrow, but I didn't want to miss this post, so I'm just going to blaze through it as fast as humanly possible here. Sorry if it's less dense than you'd prefer. It's no secret that Apple has joined a number of other companies in selling digital copies of movies online, and they're usually cheaper than what their price off a Target/Walmart/ shelf would be. Well, they're none too happy about it and are demanding that they get deals on the wholesale of these movies as well. Will they get their wish? Given that the movie industry has been in a self-pronounced slump for a while, I'm going to go with, "no." I cannot emphasize how stupid these retailers are. First of all, Apple was not the first to sell movies online, so why raise a fuss about it all of a sudden? Secondly, they're already losing sales to online piracy, would they really rather lose even more sales to piracy than have other legal services pick up that slack and put money into making more, better movies? Thirdly, online purchases of movies are not likely to exceed demand for physical copies because people are going to have a hard time getting used to the idea of not having a hard copy and the portability that comes with it. Fourthly, these online purchases don't even have special features, much like when you see the movies on television, so why is a couple of bucks less such a big deal? And lastly, what will they do with that extra shelf space? People's demand for movies aren't going to just go down dramatically, so they'll be forgoing revenue. I think they're bluffing. If they do reduce shelf space they'll just be driving demand from themselves and onto online outlets, which will screw them over even more. Face it Walmart, the cards aren't in your hands for once, they're in the studios' hands.

Google has finally done something I was hoping for: they've combined Writely and Google Spreadsheets into Google Docs, which is like a Google Office that you can easily access with a pretty short URL. It's obviously still not a substitution for normal word/spreadsheet processing applications, but it's a good free alternative, especially when portability and collaboration are key. While I'm on Google, someone has made yet another clever mashup that combines Google Maps with Happy Hour listings in lots of areas of the country. It's obviously still a growing site, but something to keep your eye on no doubt. Apple nabbed a patent for Home on iPod, which would allow you to transfer your "home" directory from your Mac onto your iPods as a backup or I suppose to use those apps and files on another machine. It's a pretty decent idea, especially with how ridiculously large the iPod's capacity is getting nowadays. Samsung has created the world's first 10 MP camera phone. Why? I have no clue. More megapixels really isn't that good, and I don't know why someone would pay over $900 for a phone with that functionality when they can get a better camera and a different phone for probably the same price. Still, it looks cool. Lastly, if you like watching tv from your computer like me, then you'll fall in love with FreeTube.

I was going to skip the movie news in the interest of time, but the trailer for Grind House was just so awesome that I decided to press on. It's clearly an homage to old school horror flicks, and you must watch it. It's going to be hard for me to get over how cool that trailer is. There's also a pretty neat poster out there for David Fincher's Zodiac if anyone's interested. Lastly, look forward to a trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with Happy Feet on November 17.

Now for a Wednesday Mind Hump:

Tell us about a woman who has done something you think is noteworthy. It could be a musician, a scientist, an athlete, or even your daughter.
I don't know why, but Grace Hopper comes to mind. She was a distinguished computer scientist who created the first compiler ever, and I think that's a pretty neat thing to have done in such a male-dominated field.

Developers Versus Programmers

I think a lot of people in CS are guilty of interchanging the terms "software developer" and "computer programmer" when describing what they're interested in what they want to do or what their position is, but this editorial brings up the great point that the two terms aren't actually equivalent. I warn you that the article is too caustic about straight up programmers, but if you put aside the negative connotations you do have some well-drawn distinctions. It's reasonable to say that a programmer is what is more colloquially referred to as a "code monkey" and is not what your typical CS major is interested in doing because that's bound to get repetitive and tiresome over time. Software development is much more interesting because you look at big pictures and solve problems on all scales rather than just code-level. This shouldn't suggest that just strictly programming is unskilled labor or that it's particularly easy, but rather that those who prefer to just code are usually people who could care less about things like long term viability or simplicity or how the users will react to something. They typically just follow the specs given to them, typically by developers if not project managers. Obviously I'd consider myself a developer, but people are really needed for both positions just like we need doctors as well as janitors. Someone's gotta do the dirty work, and a lot of these people tend to enjoy it. I don't think it's that big of a deal to make this distinction between developer and programmer since it's not like we have an accepted textbook definition of either, but all computer scientists learned the hard way how important semantics are, which is why people like me talk about junk like this.

Following up on yesterday's news of Google purchasing YouTube, we now have a better reason for the purchase: sheer hit statistics. This disparity between Google Video and YouTube is pretty extreme, and I can't imagine that Google didn't notice. Meanwhile, iTunes will have two more studios on board right after the holidays, though we don't know who quite yet. I definitely think that putting movies and tv shows online is a big part of counteracting piracy by offering a reasonable, legal solution, and ABC totally gets that. They're actually extending their free online television viewing service after seeing huge success, and they're already on iTunes of course. I just can't help but praise companies who just get it like ABC is right at this moment. Speaking of iTunes, Apple actually bought out the only English radio station in Bombay (no, it's not Mumbai, screw that stupid name change) and made it Hindi-only in a supposedly surreptitious attempt to boost iPod sales with a fresh ad campaign. They definitely saw a boost in sales, and I'd say it's a fairly valid assumption to say that they meant for this to happen, though it's almost as evil as it is smart. Still, I don't think people in Bombay care as much about English songs on the radio since I'd imagine that it's pretty badly managed. Lastly, a new type of television has been unveiled called Laser TV that supposedly takes advantage of much more of the colors that the eye can perceive than today's high definition televisions display. It sounds good and well, but I need to see some demonstrations to be convinced.

It looks like yesterday's Pan's Labyrinth trailer was a tease and we now have a full-length one to rock our socks off. I'm finally really interested in this movie now, especially given the great reviews so far. All that's left today are posters. We have some alright ones for Ghost Rider, though I like the older ones better. The sadistic minds behind Saw III used the actual blood of the actor who plays Jigsaw in the original version of this new poster for the movie, though the prints themselves are not bloody. You can bid on the original if you're a vampire or just really weird though. Lastly, I leave you with this trippy new poster for The Prestige.



I'm gonna finish up this post quickly and do the Tuesday Twosome:

1. Shower or Bath
Shower, because a bath doesn't actually make you clean! What's the appeal of lying in your own filth?

2. Comedy or Drama
Comedy, because I need the humor to keep me going here.

3. Coffee or Tea
Tea, because I think that caffeine fix is way bad for you. Plus, tea just tastes so much better in general and is more fun to drink.

4. Fiction or non-fiction
Fiction, because I'm tired of non-fiction!

5. Television or Movies
Television, because Hollywood is pumping out a lot of crap right now whereas so many new shows in the past couple of years have been slam dunks (though not necessarily in ratings, I'm afraid).

YouTube Gets a New Home

Sorry for missing the Sunday night post guys, but it would've been a horrible call for me to get even less sleep in favor of a post. The real big news came today though: Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion! That's right, just add 7 zeros to the end of that number there and it should make up for much more than the money they've pumped into YouTube (I believe it was venture capitalist cash). Was this a smart move? I think so, and there are several reasons that you can cite. For one thing, Google is clearly interested in trying to sell videos, and we know this because of Google Video, but it's not nearly as viral as YouTube. Sure, people use it, but how many times does a Google Video video get linked/e-mailed/blogged compared with a YouTube video? YouTube just has the UI that Google needs, and so all they have to do is harness this to make money. I'm sure they have some video AdWords service in mind, but I just wonder if it's that simple because YouTube clearly stated that they didn't want ads to be an actual part of its content. Maybe they had a change of heart? Another big thing here is the fact that Google eats up data like no other, and I'm sure that they're hankering for what they could gain with full access to YouTube video stats and ratings and such. Plus, they've now screwed their rivals over. How can Yahoo or Microsoft develop a formidable video service now (Launch is only music videos, that doesn't count)? It's such a neat move because now we can watch and wait what happens to YouTube now that it's going to be a full-fledged service rather than just some Web 2.0 service that has gained a lot of steam.

The problem here is that now Google has yet another product for you to keep a track of, but Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt have decided to focus its engineers away from new products and rather to try and integrate its current services better as well as to just add functionality to them. This is a great move on their part, and I hope will mark a turning point for the company that I've written off on occasion as being too unfocused. At least their book searching is starting to go well. Let's move on to some Apple stuff. So you may start seeing some new ads from them soon that are actually pretty good, but what's a little more provocative is the idea that the iPod may never die! It's crazy to imagine a world without the iPod because of how big it's gotten and the lock that FairPlay puts on all iTunes users, but Apple could definitely fumble if they make the iPod too complicated or they become too restrictive with it or a competitor just plain outsmarts them, which is becoming less and less likely. Or maybe people will rebel because their iPods aren't really random in shuffle mode? Actually, they are actually random, it's just a mathematical oddity that certain artists may be favored for you. I enjoyed that Guardian discussion of it, though I spent way too much time reading it. If you're worried that using the computer is making you fat, then you'll like the idea of the Geek-a-Cycle. I think it's pretty neat, actually, but how would you type and stuff when your hands get all sweaty? Lastly, if you're tired of spam at your personal e-mail address, you'll love dodgeit.

Finally, we have a sensible box office this weekend: Scorcese's critically acclaimed The Departed raked in over $26 million to take the top spot, which smoked Texas Chainsaw Massacre's $19.2 million premiere and Employee of the Month's $11.8 million. Still, both of those movies made back at least their production costs, so I guess everyone wins. Pan's Labyrinth is one of those movies everyone's talking about, and IGN snagged an English trailer for it, and it's quite good. I'm assuming it's a teaser, but I think it fails at attracting the interest of people who don't already know about it because it's not as scary as some people may think from watching that. I haven't heard of Blood Diamond, but apparently it has Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly, and we have a poster for it today. Apparently, it takes place in the early 90s in Sierra Leone and centers around two men seeking a very valuable diamond. I can't help but wonder if Kanye West inspired this movie, but I'm sure his hit single was just convenient. I found the poster for Deja Vu more interesting, nonetheless:



And now, for some Monday Madnesss:

1. From amaranth:
Name three people you would pick (and why) if you could choose who to be stranded on a deserted island with.
That's very hard. I'm going to go with my brother, his fiance, and a friend of mine from high school. The last pick is because he'd definitely keep our spirits up, the first two are because I'd miss them too much.

2. From julie:
What is your favorite genre of film and what is your favorite movie from that genre?
Drama: Kill Bill. Ok, so maybe it's more action, but I don't consider it an action flick.

3. From tiffany:
Which country would you like to visit and why?
The UK, because I've heard London is cool.

4. From wil:
What are you driving these days? What's it's (their) good and bad points? Would you buy another one, and why or why not?
A Hyundai XG300. It's nice and luxorious for the price, but the body is a little cheaper than I'd prefer. I wouldn't buy another one simply because I'm paranoid about accidents because of my last one and would want another Volvo, but I still love the XG. It's so roomy and smooth.

5. From cindy swanson:
"Lost," "24," or both?
BOTH! I love 24 better, but both shows are so good in their own ways.

6. From lady starlight:
You've been very good this year. What should Santa bring you for Christmas? (the sky is the limit)
A Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, of course!

President's Job

I've wasted too much time doing nothing tonight, I guess because I'm still tired (plus the 3 hour drive to Houston is always a pain). It was my first trip on 290E since the accident though, so I'm glad I made it back in one piece again, car and all. Anyway, I really only feel like talking about this clip from The Daily Show that largely pulls out ridiculous clips of George W Bush trying to explain his job. His explanation of his job is horrible, and it makes you wonder what he really does. He's so high up that you've gotta figure that he knows very little other than politics and public relations, which he's even worse at, by the way. I love the punches that Jon pulls because Bush leaves himself so open to them. I personally think that Bush has good intentions, but his idea of the right things to do is just so warped. I think that it's impossible for a president to lead his country anywhere near perfection: there will always be plenty of dissenters. However, you have to wonder, what has Bush really done to appease the masses? My hot button issue is education, and he's been really bad at promoting it, and it pisses me off because there are all these jobs in science available (largely in technology) that could really jumpstart our economy but not even students and he's doing nothing to alleviate that. When it comes down to it, education is the bedrock of any nation. Without smart people, how will we keep the US in the forefront? Who will make the world a better place to live in? Who will keep our economy from collapse? Certainly not Bush, he hasn't taken much a stab at any of these, and that's what really disappoints me about him. So you have to ask yourself, what does he really do?

Apparently, MacBook Pros with Core 2 Duo processors are, in fact, on their way and will arrive in time for the holidays according to AppleInsider. Do we believe them? Apple Matters actually analyzed all of Think Secret's predictions from the past year or so and found out they they're right half the time, but it would be cool to see that contrasted to AppleInsider. Anyway, I think Merom notebooks from Apple are a safe bet, and Q4 of this year makes sense. There's been a lot of negative press for the PS3 on overheating that I haven't covered because it sounded unfounded, and it looks like I was right. It must've just been a lemon unit, and I think there's enough to pick on Sony about without having to harp on some bad luck. If you're interested in creating your own startup company, you may find this article enlightening bringing out a lot of issues I never thought about. Business is such a foreign beast from programming and, despite being largely simpler, I think it's easy to be thrown off by it if you're not careful and jump headfirst into your own software company. If you've ever wanted to sort your images better, you'll get a kick out of this. Lastly, if you're tired of Tetris, try Ring Mania instead.

All I have today is multimedia. We finally have a real trailer for The Nativity Story, and I really don't know what to make of it. It looks like it could be really good, but I just hope that it doesn't get too caught up with itself. I just don't want it to be corny bible movie, I want it to be meaningful. FilmForce snagged a behind-the-scenes look at Apocalypto, and Mel Gibson definitely seems really into the movie. I just wonder what the story will really be like. Lastly, Yahoo Movies has an exclusive clip for Man of the Year, which I'm actually starting to like now. I don't know if I like their marketing campaign, but I think I like the overall storyline, and Robin Williams in that role.

Before I conclude, I found this postcard on PostSecret and had to share it. I feel this way sometimes myself, especially when girls pass me up because I'm not white, but I wouldn't trade my skin color for the world.



Now for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Name a song you know by heart.
"Fix You" by Coldplay

Soup
What will you absolutely not do in front of another person?
Urinate. I'm totally urinal shy. I don't like the risk of some other guy seeing my junk.

Salad
How often do you use mouthwash and what kind do you like?
Almost never. I just brush vigorously. I think that brushing and flossing is way better than mouthwash.

Main Course
Finish this sentence: I am embarrassed when...
I wave at people I think are waving at me but they're not. Or when I try saying 'hi' to people that don't hear me when I say it.

Dessert
What was the last food you craved?
Probably some ice cream earlier today, but I definitely had my fill of that.

Have a fun weekend everyone. And by the way, it's 12:05 AM, and OU still sucks! =)

Cool Workplaces

Once again, not a whole lot to talk about today, but I've come up with something anyway. I went to the Apple company night tonight, and it was actually pretty good. I've heard mixed things about working at Apple, but I still have a strong interest in it because I like their products. Quite a few people actually asked questions about the work environment, likely trying to get a response like you would from Google about how open their environment is, but all we managed to get from these guys is that it's hectic and relaxing at the same time, and you see Steve Jobs around. Whoopee. If you want to see some really cool places to work at, you should check out this list. The Red Bull office looks really nice and modern while VW Phaeton plant is just big and clean. Of course, several of these offices exist in the UK, so be wary of writer's bias in this article (i.e. don't take it as a top 10 list, just a list of cool places). It's amazing how important a workplace is. As far as recruitment goes, you want to be able to show off to prospective hires. Like I wasn't particularly impressed with the TI campus, and that definitely weighed on my decision to go there and weighs on my decision to go back there again. When it comes down to it, everyone wants to be able to get up at 6:30 AM and be excited for work, but that typically doesn't happen. The homier your office is though, the less you're likely to mind going there. I'm vastly more productive in classes with more spacious classrooms because I feel like doing more because I have more space to do it in, and I think it's disappointing that not enough companies devote resources into a positive environment. The fact that articles like this exist and get on Digg should be evidence enough that people actually do care, which means that they'd probably be more enthused to get work done.

Google has released its code search engine, and it's really quite nifty. However, I think that we'll see more CS students using it to cheat, which is going to be sad to witness. I hope that teachers code crawler scripts to check student submissions again Google. In fact, I'd be interested in using Python to make something like that myself just for the hell of it. Then there's the illegal code you'll find out there, like this keygen for Winzip. I just like seeing the code for it because I was always curious about the keygen algorithms. If you've ever wondered why neat gadgets from overseas don't make it to the US, then you may find this article enlightening. Aside from the market here being totally different, there's the question of whether revenues will work well and if it even does well in its home market. I'll often look for quotes for random purposes, and now I found a list of great ones for computer geeks like me related to programming. I figured that some of you would enjoy skimming those. Lastly, the rentometer site is down right now but is really neat for comparing your rent to places in your area. It told me that my place is a great deal, which I figured as much anyway.

We have a trailer for 300 and it's really quite amazing. It's not a whole lot more than the teaser, but the presentation of it is just so amazing that it's almost cruel to make us wait until March for it. Horror junkies should head to Cinempire for some new pictures from Saw 3. It looks like it'll be a decent movie, but the pictures don't say much. Lastly, we have some clips from Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers, which you'll remember is about the men depicted in the Iwo Jima statue in Washington, DC. I think that this movie will be one of those great historical dramas, and I hope that Eastwood has another classic movie still in him.

Now for the 3x Thursday:

1. How do you listen to music?...Do you listen to entire albums or just put a playlist (or your ipod or whatever) on shuffle, or something else?
Most often: on my computer in iTunes. Sometimes I'll pop in albums, and sometimes I'll just pick random points in my library and start playing tracks, or I'll browse all the free music I got through the Apple facebook group. I also spend a fair amount of time listening in Ruckus though to that music.

2. On what medium do you listen to most of your music (radio, cd player, car, home, puter)? Which do you prefer the most?
Computer, which I like best because of my speaker. I also enjoy them on my Shuffle when I'm at the gym, except that I can't put much slow music on it.

3. What's your music media of choice (radio, cd's, mp3s, oog, mp4, etc)? Does it matter to you? Why?
CDs, because I like having a physical copy I can always go back and rip/burn from. That's why I just buy my CDs at Best Buy, not in iTunes.

Bonus Question: Are you in to any albums right now? If so, what?
I'm really into the new Jet album (Shine On), and was recently addicted to Revelations (Audioslave) and Stadium Arcadium (Red Hot Chili Peppers).

A YouTube Proposal on YouTube

Not a whole lot to talk about today, and yet I've wasted far too much time reading articles I don't feel are worth talking about here. Aside from all that, I found out that I made above a 100 on my Probability test but failed the Physics exam making almost exactly the average grade. Oh well, I guess that makes me a slightly more normal college student. Anyway, someone posted a video on YouTube with his suggestions for how YouTube could fix its problems with copyright, and one of them was actually pretty decent. What if copyright holders would mark what videos should and shouldn't be flagged to help expedite the moderation process and yield a more legal YouTube? It's an interesting idea, but are these people really going to go through all that trouble rather than just suing YouTube? YouTube is in quite a pickle now because people are starting to expect them to be more responsible about illegal content, and yet its very bedrock is the illicit content. I have a better idea: why not offer this copyrighted content legally, but for free? For example, people like watching Seinfeld episodes on YouTube, so why not have best of collages from Seinfeld on YouTube as a promotion for the DVDs? Or why not let people use songs from copyrighted artists as long as they plug a new album or something? In other words, I think that YouTube should aim to bring in this illegal content legally rather than get rid of it through agreements with the content providers that serve to benefit them as well. That's just my two cents though, I'll let you ponder it for a while.

Someone put up a hilarious list of how you can shoot yourself in a variety of programming languages in an effort to mock some of their unique attributes and annoyances, and what's even better is that readers have made even better suggestions of their own. This one is really brilliant for .Net: Microsoft gives you a gun and tells you to shoot yourself in the foot. This is totally a must-skim for any programmers out there. Google has started offering widgets similar to what you can get with Google Desktop to website owners, and it's a pretty neat idea except that I don't think it's compatible with all blogs, which is what I feel they'd be most useful for. Maybe they should try integrating the service more smoothly with Blogger? I don't like talking about the Zune much anymore because I've butchered it enough, but Wired had to go and put up an article that frames my opinions about it even better than I can. In a few words: it's not as cool as it's trying to market itself as and it's only innovative features are things that people don't really care about. Searchmash is a cool site I ran into today that's a Google mashup created by Google itself that basically evolved out of a need for a user interface that's more intuitive than what Google currently offers. I think it's a pretty nifty little site, though I'll probably forget to use it in the future since there's a YubNub command for it (sema). Lastly, I have this concept phone from BenQ that reminds me of a phone I saw in Popular Science last year that's a changing touchscreen interface. I think it could be great, but there's still logistical issues like having that touch feedback and not accidentally dialing someone while it's in your pocket and such.



AICN's Massawyrm got to see Apocalypto and seems to have really enjoyed it. He put aside the bad Gibson press though, and I think that's important because the trailers for this movie looked really crazy and definitely different from most of the crap in theaters nowadays. Moviefone put up the trailer for Ghost Rider and it looks better than I expected. However, my main fear now is that they'll end up overpowering the movie with corny dialogue and watering down the romance. One of my favorite things about the Spider-mans was how they handled Mary Jane without pushing aside the meat of the stories. Lastly, IGN dug up some details on Hostel 2, which sounds very similar to the original. What's creepy about it is how much it sounds like it could almost really happen.

Now for a Wednesday Mind Hump:

Apple pie or pumpkin pie?
Pumpkin, it's just so much better.
Cars or SUVs?
Cars, because they're easier to park.
Pen or pencil?
Pencil, because I'm far from perfect.
Electric guitar or acoustic guitar?
Acoustic, classical to be more specific.
Shower or bath?
Shower, because how do you get clean from a bath?
Daffy Duck or Yogi Bear?
Daffy, just because.
Butter on a biscuit or jam on a biscuit?
Butter, because it's sinfully delicious.
Bringing sexy back or dropping it like it's hot?
Bringing sexy back, of course.

RIP Online Gambling

I wonder how many people will mistake that title for spam or how much spam I'll get as a result of it. Anyway, it's true: online gambling died in America on Monday thanks to some sneaky Congressmen. I think it's really shady to have to sneak it in a security bill like that, but I guess politics are just messy by nature. I guess technically, Bush can still veto it, but political analysts don't see that happening. I debated about this issue for a few minutes today with my room mate, and I actually ended up agreeing with him that it's stupid legislation. It is giving money to businesses outside the US and is almost a money drain since it's not like you're investing the money in something and promoting out economy, but the fact remains that the power of how to spend one's money should still remain in the hands of people. Who is the government to tell us what we can and can't do? What's so bad about gambling online? It's no more of a vice than smoking on drinking and yet those are totally legit for people of certain ages. I think it would've been smarted to allow such businesses to flourish domestically instead and then just impose a sin tax on it or something. Who does it help to totally abolish it? Some casinos in Nevada? I wish our politicians would try doing stuff that actually helps the little people.

Unsurprisingly, Steve Jobs will be delivering the keynote speech at next year's Macworld Expo in the middle of January. You may recall that he did so this past January with new MacBook Pro and Intel-based iMac series. Maybe we'll see an Apple UMPC this time? I wouldn't hold my breath, but it's still possible. I'm betting more on a real next-gen iPod. Of course, things weren't always so rosy out in Cupertino and OS News has some of Apple's worst business decisions ever, which I'll let you skim for yourselves. In this day and age of ridiculous amounts of megapixels in cameras, research is being done for less pixels to get more pictures with less power, though I'm hazy on how the extrapolation can be that efficient. However, we do waste a lot of pixels in today's models so I suppose that it's good that researchers are looking to try something different. Lastly, if you're a fan of torrents of television shows you can't watch live, you should check out this Democracy player hack that almost acts as a season pass for your favorite shows.

Christopher Nolan has revealed that Two Face will, indeed, be in The Dark Knight and that he'll of course be continuing the sorts of themes he had in the first movie, but still hopes to keep things fresh and original. The script isn't done yet, but I'm sure we're all chomping at the bit for its completion and subsequent leak. AICN's Massawyrm saw The Departed and is joining the chorus of people singing the praises of Scorcese's latest creation. Now my interest in this movie is just off the scale. AICN also snagged a review of Jesus Camp and it sounds like a real interest look at bible camps and brainwashing little kids. I may be Christian, but I hate the idea of forcing Christianity on others rather than letting them discover it for themselves, and I'm glad someone is exposing this seedy underbelly. Yahoo Movies has the final trailer for Saw 3, and I was really disappointed in it. It was little more than a glorified teaser and I think it still should've given us a better premise than it pretty much being the same as the first two movies. Lastly, we have the one sheet for Ghost Rider, and I like it though it speaks more as a movie poster than a comic book movie poster, which bothers me slightly.



Now for the Tuesday Twosome:

If you had to, which would you choose?

1. Humid or Dry
Dry. Having lived in both for extended periods of time, the humidity just makes you feel dirtier and makes you sweat more.

2. Earthquake or Hurricane
Hurricane, because I don't like the idea of the ground opening.

3. Flood or Fire
Flood, because it's slightly less damaging and easier to prevent against.

4. Wet or Dry
Wet, I don't know why.

5. Lake or Beach
Beach, because it's a little cleaner and the sand is fun to play in.

New Yahoo Mail Worthwhile?

There's actually not a whole lot of tech news today, which is good because I have plenty of work to get to. The article I spent the most time with was talking about the Yahoo Mail beta, so I felt that it was worth talking about myself. I like the crux of his editorial there: an upgrade should always be defined by its purpose. What meaningful changes is it adding? They crammed all these ads in and they're retaining frames, which is so 1997. Their design was so much better before, though I guess part of it is the fact that it's one of the older web-based e-mail services. They're almost stepping backwards with this one. Also, it doesn't seem like they've tried to speed things up. All in all, this was a really clumsy execution on Yahoo's part. I almost wonder if they want to stay the under dog. They made some good advances with Yahoo Maps, so why don't they try to stand out from Google in any of their other services? It just irritates me a bit because I know that they're better than this! They need to go back to the drawing board and rethink the service and come back with something that has real people abuzz, not just a few magazine writers. Meanwhile, the New York Times is writing about how good Gmail's spam filter has become, and yet Yahoo Mail still hasn't done much with theirs, and I agree along with many other people I've spoken with. I can't remember the last time I've had to actually read spam in my inbox.

One more thing about Gmail: there are actually some hidden labels I wasn't aware of and I'm sure many of you could benefit from. If you're curious as to how fast you can really type, then you'll enjoy this application. If I wasn't worried about murdering my RAM, I'd install it myself. It looks really nifty. The rest of the stuff I have is pretty frivolous. Someone finally made a list of ways to get on the Digg front page, and it's sad how true they are. They just speak to what kind of crowd Digg has drawn in though, not because of any hacking or cheating. I was thinking of being a giant spoon this Halloween, but how pimp would it be to be a giant rubiks cube? I'm really tempted to build one now. Lastly, Macenstein put up their Mac Chick of the Month, and you'll see why I decided to plug this right here:



It looks like most of the principal photography is done on Spider-man 3 and they're well on their way to their May release date, but I just can't wait that long! AICN nabbed some set pics from Grind House featuring the car in the poster and Kurt Russell. Not terribly exciting, but something is better than nothing. There's a trailer for Sleeping Dogs, which appears to be a kind of interesting romantic comedy. I'd see it if it got even half-way decent reviews. Lastly, Netflix is offering a cool $1 million to the person who can improve their movie recommendation feature by at least 10%. If only I didn't have this school gig going I could try it!

Now for some Monday Madness:

1. From amanda f:
What do you do when somebody complements you?
d. Turn red in embarrassment at the attention and look around to see other people's reaction
This actually happened last week when I was wearing a shirt too small and people were remarking at my biceps. They're really not that big, I wasn't just being modest about them. I'm disappointed in them, actually.

2. From shelly:
What color are your eyes?
Light brown. I'm so glad I got contacts so that people can see them now!

3. From kia:
What do you like most about yourself?
I like how easy I am to get along with. I try to be a nice guy because I like being in people's good favor. I'm not afraid to stand up if it means people not liking me, but I still try to be nice overall.

4. From julie:
How do you spend Christmas?
In Houston with my family.

5. From wide imagination:
When do you normally blog? Day or night?
At night, around 10PM or whenever I get home from campus (sometimes just before I go to bed).

6. From rach:
What song can you relate to your personal life? Share a line or two of that song.
I'm going to go with Like a Stone, by Audioslave
"In your house I long to be
Room by room patiently"
Sorry it's so corny, but I'm too tired to come up with a better one.

7. From sherle:
What is your favorite color for a sleeping environment?
Cream white, because it's soothing.

The Case of the Missing DVR

I know, it's been a few days since I posted last. Sometimes though, life just has to take priority. To make up for it, here are some of my favorite pictures from the ACM retreat out in La Grange. Here's a panoramic of the view around us:



And here's our little tent town:



The booze spread (beer not included):



The view at sunset:



Just a stupid idea for a picture I had:



I also went to a TLD party on Friday, and that was fun, though slightly embarrassing since many of the other guys were so much better than me. I felt better today though at practice when I nailed the crossbody. Anyway, I know I've addressed this before, but Roughly Drafted has a better piece on it that I wanted to cover: why is DVR functionality missing from the iTV? I totally forgot the fact that Tivo is still losing money, and they've been at the DVR game for a long long time now. So why would Apple want to try jumping in that hole? Also, do they really want to go through the hassle of having to get cable companies and television networks to partner up with them for a DVR service when they're already working hard at selling their shows commercial-free on iTunes? That just wouldn't make sense. Not to mentioned that the DVR market is saturated enough, especially with software solutions already available and the fact that it's not feasible worldwide, which would confuse Apple's marketing strategy. I think that above all this though is the fact that it would be counterproductive to try to sell shows on one hand and then practically give them away for free by just allowing users to easily record them to a digital format from their television. If DVR does come to iTV, it won't be for a while.

I've been chatting here with someone about some important stuff, so I have to breeze through the rest of this stuff. There's a good list here of free stuff on iTunes. I'd check it out if I was, well, anyone who uses iTunes! Microsoft has decided to "competitively" price their Zune at $249 against the new iPod with music downloads being $1 apiece, but do they really stand a chance even then? Computerworld believes so, but I respectfully disagree. I think the social aspect is totally extraneous, and the screen really isn't that much better for movies (not that people would even care). I think the design looks good, and it's a nice device, but what does it bring to the table that's actually revolutionary? What is kind of revolutionary, in my opinion, is Viidoo, which allows you to stream live television via a P2P backend, and it includes premium channels like HBO and other channels that people actually watch (not just random networks). It does include ads so it's legal in theory, but don't bank on it. Lastly, Google has opened up Google Talk to the public at large. It's a decent IM service, but it's going to be hard to gain steam against existing hard-hitters outside the realm of chatting within Gmail.

This weekend was rather uneventful for movies, once again, with Open Season taking the top spot at $23 million and The Guardian only behind by a few million bucks. Just one more thing though, the new Knight Rider poster looks sweet.

Unconscious Mutterings are down, so I'll go with the Sunday Seven:

Name your favorite sports teams, and for the less sports-educated, be sure to indicate the sport with which they're associated.
1. Texas Longhorns (CF)
2. Houston Astros (Baseball)
3. Dallas Cowboys (NFL)
4. Ohio State (CF) (Hey, I know they beat us, but I still respect them)
5. USC Trojans (CF) (Only for what they did to OU 2 years ago in the Orange Bowl)
6. Houston Rockets (Basketball)
7. Tennessee Titans (NFL)