On Passing Judgement

Sorry to have missed so many, but this week has been a wild and crazy ride. On the bright side, I got my Sansa today! I'll give full impressions soon enough, just not today. Today I'm going to cover a topic I've wanted to discuss for a couple of weeks and now Paul Graham has given me reason to do so: judging people. I like his view of there being two types of judgement: judging for the sake of judgement (as in for a contest or for a court case) where impartiality is vital and expected, and judgement as means to some other end, as in judging who's best to date or who should get into a university. What's interesting is that we often expect the first time when we're really getting the second not realizing that the second type doesn't have a concept of being fair. Just because a girl is at a club and chooses to dance with one guy over another doesn't mean that the other guy should take it personally, because she's not investigating his abilities or character to judge him in particular, she just wants to see who she'd have the most fun dancing with.

I even have a personal case to relay, where obviously no names will be revealed (so don't try guessing). There's an individual in my department who I knew of but didn't really interact with much because, well, I usually interact with friends I already have in my CS classes (as we all do when we know people in certain classes). However, this person judged me as being arrogant, unbeknown to be until a few weeks ago where it started influencing people who I had never met before. Understandably, I was offended by this and yet, this person didn't really mean any harm (at least I don't think). They didn't care to get the full story on me because they had no interest in this, they were just trying to make a prima facie analysis of whether I was a worthwhile person to know, which clearly came out as negative. In fact, we do this all the time. When the bus is full and you need to decide who to sit next to, who do you pick? Often, guys sit near guys and girls sit near girls, and it's weird to be offended if someone decides to not sit next to you because they're not trying to knock you as a person, judging you just wasn't their end goal. However, there is hope yet: make more of an effort to sell yourself, as Paul puts it. There's something I hate doing, but I hope that spending more time with certain people will replace false impressions with the real thing. We've actually been having judgement problems in ACM as well where a gender/sexuality workshop at meeting failed horribly because the moderator was close-minded. I took one thing from it though: we sometimes make subconscious judgements of people based on gender not because we mean to judge them a certain way, but it's that second type of judgement and it's become ingrained in us. Anyone who's not a jerk tries to treat women equally, I just feel like sometimes women mistake that second type of judgement for the first type and get offended, especially in this department. Anyway, I'm not going to get offended by the second type of judgement anymore. It's important to not be so self-centered, and to think of the bigger picture (just like in software design; what do you know, a nerdy parallel?!).

Speaking of design, Joel Splosky has a quick read that I just thought was cute: a new elevator technology that's really fancy and efficient, but it wasn't designed quite well enough. Don't cheat like I did, actually try to figure out what the problem is before you highlight the answer.

Usually, I pass on social networking sites nowadays because it's just done to death. It's a nice little trend, but it's headed right for the toilet at this rate. Anyway, I yielded a bit to Wakoopa, which is a really neat site that uses your software usage to suggest other products you may like and list updates and even show reviews of your software. It only takes 5MB of RAM while running, so give it a shot. It also provides usage stats and, lo and behold, tags (bet you didn't see that coming).

Joost has gone "live", which means that they now have premium content supported by ads (haven't run into this yet) and have given all beta testers unlimited invites. So leave me a comment with your e-mail address and name if you want an invite! There is a ridiculous amount of channels now, but my computer is running low on RAM so I'd better not try looking through it for you (Firefox is eating memory like no other and I don't want to restart until after this is done).

Speaking of new software, Gaim is now Pidgin and Ars Technica has a full review of Pidgin 2.0. The review is very positive, which is a big compliment coming from Ars Technica. Plus, I'm using it right now and I feel cool just using it because of how nice the interface changes are and the welcome bug fixes. If you're on Linux or Windows and use IM, you're really missing out if you don't try out Pidgin.

Yahoo has finally decided closed down Yahoo Photos. I speculated on this very early on because it didn't make sense for them to have two competing services once they acquired Flickr, and their justifications for keeping Yahoo Photos were pretty stupid. I didn't think it'd take this long for them to realize what was necessary, but I'm pleased that they're actually being quite graceful about it.

This post wouldn't be complete if I didn't briefly mention the Digg scandal about Digg taking down dugg stories referencing an HD-DVD processing key after receiving a cease-and-desist order. Using this key literally circumvents the DRM used on all HD-DVD discs released. Yes, they're just that stupid. I think the community backlash for doing this was a bit harsh given that releasing such a key can't possibly be legal and it violates Digg's TOS, but I respect them for decided that freedom of speech reigns over corporate control of the Internet. Personally, I agree with distributing the key as a sign of rebellion for how inane the HD-DVD schema is.


We have a poster for The Golden Compass, but I felt it was too ugly to post here (despite my love for the original book, mind you). So instead, I thought I'd show off one of a few new posters for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I like much better. There are also some new ones for The Simpsons if you're interested, but they're nothing special.

Now onto the trailers. Apple has an HD trailer for Rush Hour 3, and I felt very underwhelmed by it. My friend disagrees because he's afraid that fanboys are just going to hate on Brett Ratner, but my issue is with the trailer and not with him as a director as I enjoyed the first two Rush Hour movies very much. Moviefone has another trailer for Shrek the Third, and I think that I like this one even more than the last one! It's very funny and I think it'll end up making for a cute, family movie that adults will actually enjoy (like the first two). Yahoo has the teaser for Hot Rod, featuring SNL's Pete Sampers (of "Lazy Sunday" fame), and it's mildly amusing. I'm holding out on judgement (heh, funny to use that word now in this post) until I see at trailer.

Disney, in a strange display of openness, is showing off 9 minutes of Ratatouille on their website. I really like the animation style in this movie, and it's executed quite well. I didn't laugh out loud or anything, but it was still fun in its own respect, and I guess more of a visual feast.

According to Joe Carnahan, of Smokin' Aces infamy, he's seen the teaser trailer for Sin City 2 and it's supposed to be phenomenal. Now I'm really really excited to see some footage from this movie!

Lastly, given that people aren't saying the best things about Spider-man 3, you may want to try giving Lucky You a shot instead. It sounds like a worthwhile drama from some people I respect, but critics are butchering it.

Now, before I go eat myself, for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Name something you would not want to own.
A motorcycle. I'd be so scared to ride the bloody thing!

Soup
Describe your hair (texture, color, length, etc.).
It's black, very thick right now (in a fro when I don't gel it, almost), and very curly. It really is way too thick (like 2-3 in. above my head), but I'm too lazy to get a haircut here in Austin.

Salad
Finish this sentence: I’ll never forget ___________.
the girl next door. Just kidding, there was no girl next door, but I assume that comes from a comedy I love, The Girl Next Door. Anyway, I'll never forget how my luck changed on March 1, 2007 with a job offer followed by a night of Sandy's and dancing.

Main Course
Which famous person would you like to be for one day? Why?
John Frusciante, so I can learn his mad guitar skills (or at least a day's worth).

Dessert
Write one sentence about yourself that includes one thing that is true and another thing that is not.
I enjoy smiling wide and polishing my gun collection.

Blogging, Sponsored by ______ ?

So it looks like not posting yesterday set me back a bit, and now there's all this crap to talk about. As it seems like is often the case nowadays though, it was used very wisely with someone special, so all is well. Anyway, what I figured I'd make the headline today is this new form of advertising from Google called Pay-Per-Action (PPA) where you're not paid by the click, but rather by the user doing something at the site on click-through. Also, rather than the box on the side like how AdSense is, it can be incorporated directly into normal text (presumably, via automatic, smart searching of your text). This isn't a new concept, but other people who have tried it kind of do it in an obtrusive and irritating way. It looks like they're handling it a little better, though being JavaScript can prove to be less than ideal, especially for RSS aggregators. What you have to wonder though, is whether this lowers the credibility of bloggers utilizing the text link ad format, because maybe they'll try to speak in a certain way to divert readers to those sites so they can get money. Paying bloggers who solely say good stuff about your products or bribery aren't unheard of, just usually quickly found out and excommunicated from blog readers. So I guess theoretically then, such a problem would iron itself out. It still feels weird though. With AdSense, it's like having a banner ad: you're not imposing anything on the reader, it's just there for when their eyes wander. With text links though, you're definitely getting a better chance at targeting an audience, but you compromise their trust in your site, even if you're not purposely trying to direct promote such advertising. Given that this blog is for fun, I would never do something like that. I prefer for everyone to realize that my opinions truly are my own without any doubt, but it's just an interesting ethical issue to ponder.

Speaking of Google, Ars Technica got its hands on their new mobile search, and it definitely sounds much more intelligent than before. Their thoughts are almost too positive, and I was hoping to see some flaws in it, but maybe it is just that awesome? They do have a knack for usability, after all (much more so than attractive UIs, ugh). YouTube is actually going to be launching a mobile site of their own this summer (I guess Google has really turned its attention to mobile applications now, I wonder if it has anything to do with that non-existent Google Phone?). June is when their deal with VCast expires, so that's why they have to wait. I question how easily people will be able to find videos on YouTube on their phone, if they'll really want it, and if it'll be worth whatever it costs them to access the Internet at incredibly slow speeds on their phone?

Meanwhile, poor Yahoo is still kind of straggling. In what I consider an off color move, they've decided to Hell with their premium mail service and are now giving everyone unlimited storage. That's exciting and all, but I find it annoying that people still can't forward from Yahoo Mail, and it still doesn't support Pop3 access. Combine that with fact that its interface is little more than a tab-based version of Outlook Express, and you have an inferior product. Sorry Yahoo, more space just isn't enough. Why not work on making things faster and more robust? You have a decent UI, just run with it farther, and optimize.

I guess everyone has seen their fair share of lukewarm receptions of the Apple TV, but because Ars Technica put theirs up I just have to plug it. It's the most comprehensive look you'll see around, and balances the good with the bad very well. Some sites are even going so far as to recommend the Mac Mini instead. Just be forewarned that rigging that up will take extra effort, so in that case you might as well just get a Windows Media Center machine instead.

One more quick thing with Apple: even the New York Times is supporting that rumor we heard a long while back that they may subsidize the purchase of albums for which you've already bought songs from, just within a certain time period. Maybe we'll hear official word soon, then?

So Microsoft is releasing their Xbox 360 Elite thing tomorrow, and I just had to remark at how stupid this is. You're paying $480 for an Xbox 360 in black with an HDMI cable and a 120 GB hard drive. The best part is that the hard drive costs $180 separately. Why don't they just take your first born child? I'm glad I don't have time for video games so much anymore, or else I'd be totally broke by now.

Surprisingly enough, Robert Rodriguez has already started talking a little bit about Sin City 3 and how Johnny Depp may even be in it. That sounds like it'd be a freaking cool movie, especially around the "Hell and Black" storyline.

I'm a little ashamed to say that I actually laughed during the trailer for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I'm afraid it'll be a movie full of flat jokes, but I do hope that it does end up being funnier than usual for a romantic comedy because I like Kevin James and Adam Sandler. On the opposite end of the genre spectrum is the trailer for 28 Weeks Later, which is much better than I would've expected, though I think it follows a more typical zombie movie storyline this time around. It probably won't be as fresh as the original was.

Lastly, there are pictures up from the premiere of Grind House of its leading ladies. It's weird to see them now all dressed up and outside the context of their characters in the trailers.

Before I close up, I'm going to leave you a picture from my scavenger hunt this weekend for the ACM scavenger hunt. Apparently, the girls were less than willing in publicly trying to pull me back by the shirt, so we decided on the next funniest thing for the word "Axe"



I know, scary....

So I can't mind hump this week because I don't own any cats, so let's go with Loaded Questions instead:

Hypotheticals: If you could be a character in any novel, who would you be?
Ok, that's extremely hard. The point of a lot of novels are to really deconstruct characters, and so there aren't often characters who you'd love to be. I guess if I had to be anyone though, I'd be the main character in The Dead Zone. He's sort of a tragic character, but he gives up his life for something noble, and I dig that.

Anything Goes: What outdoor activity do you consider the most dangerous?
Probably mountain climbing. Rock climbing is hard enough as it is, how the Hell do you safely scale a mountain?!

No-Brainers: What is your favorite genre of movies?
Probably dramas. I like dramas that incorporate a fair amount of dry/dark humor though (hence my obsessions for Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction).

Personals: How good is your long-term memory, on a scale of one to ten?
I'll go with a 6, maybe a 7 if I'm being generous. I'll remember random stuff, but not always the most important stuff.

Fair warning: I'm not going to be able to post tomorrow night because I will be going to Copa.

YouTube Slips Again

Copa was pretty fun last night! Things were looking grim for a while with more guys than girls, but everything worked out in the end! That's everyone except Adam and Laurie, who will have to just make it in a future picture. Anyway, you probably came here for YouTube, not to hear recaps of my late night adventures, so on with the show. Their deal with CBS seems to have slipped through their fingers. Poor YouTube, things aren't as rosy for them as when they were acquired by Google. CBS is still in talks with them, but for small potatoes now, not the big stuff. What I don't get is what the Hell YouTube is saying in these negotiations that's turning everyone away? Maybe Eric Schmidt should step in and talk some sense into them? Comedy Central and Viacom are by no means small clients, and I'm sure that it's making other big players skeptical as well. Could this be the end of YouTube as we know it? Probably not, Google wouldn't let that happen. They're not totally screwed yet or anything, but they need to get their act together and fast. Once they lose the excitement they've had built up for them all this time, people will start to realize that the video quality on YouTube really isn't that awesome, and they'll start facing more lawsuits. I really do believe that time is ticking for them, the same clock that ticks for like-minded startups. It's really brutal out there for a tech startup, and buzz alone isn't enough to support a company, especially one that's still not 100% legit and may never be. I'm rooting for those guys, but things really are looking grim.

Are we all agreed that Canon is freaking awesome? Ok, I guess I'm biased because I love my camera and their products just have such impressive lifetimes. But anyway, to the left here is a $500 camera, the PowerShot TX1, that can film in 720p HD. How sweet is that? This is aside from all the sweet features that's on board (face detection, intelligent orientation, etc). Oh but wait, that's not all. There's also their new Digital ELPH models, one of which feature a stylish two-tone casing. I'd probably still prefer the SD 700 IS though.

So remember how the Sirius and XM merger was supposed to be cool and all? Um, not so much so. They're not actually merging the services, no no. That would make too much sense. They're just, merging the companies themselves, at no benefit to the consumers. Great. Oh, and it'll be a while before that happens even, so sit tight.

Firefox 2.0.2 is out, I just thought I'd mention that real quick. It's mainly security issues fixed, but those are still important things to patch.

CompUSA is hurting really really bad right now. So much so, in fact, that they're shutting down nearly half their stores. With the big boys beating them bad (Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-mart), and the interweb and all, they just can't compete. Sad, they used to have really good deals, too, and now they may go totally bankrupt.

Google has finally released a product to the masses that's not free: Google Apps Premier. It's just a premium version of Google Apps for Your Domain, and it's actually not at a bad price either. Not too shabby, Google, not too shabby at all.

We haven't heard much from the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD fronts for a while, so how about another comparison of the two? I like this one, it has pretty graphs and draws worthwhile conclusions. Still, I don't think people care about special features as much as video quality, and HD-DVD just seems to win there (though this article doesn't cite that as being very different between the two).

It looks like I've missed several trailers in the past couple of days. In the trailer for Next, we get a story that sounds like a spinoff of Minority Report where Jessica Biel can't pull of being Nicholas Cage's girlfriend because he's old enough to be her father. The movie doesn't sound that bad, but just not that amazing either. I was far less impressed by the trailer for Vacancy, as eerie as the premise of a hotel room where you're being watched and supposedly tortured is. It's just your standard horror fare. I thought that the trailer for Talk To Me was pretty cool though, even though it gave us a little too much information. I always love seeing Don Cheadle on the big screen because he's by far one of the most talented African American actors around.

I guess nerds should unite now in the announcement that wheels are turning for the creation of a Justice League movie. I just don't think they'll put together a good enough story with great enough actors to pull of making this movie what it should be. I can't imagine how they'd get Christian Bale on board if they wanted to stay true to that depiction of Batman, and I'm surprised that DC is even allowing this given that it could conflict with Superman Returns and Batman Begins in terms of character development.

Great news for other geeks though: Sin City 2 is ready to roll and could start shooting as early as later this Spring. Supposedly, the Austin heat may delay things a bit, but I'm sure that Rodriguez wouldn't let the Texas weather bring him down. I hope they're filming while I'm in town so I can try to figure out where they're filming and snap pictures!

Now for Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?
Right on my forehead, though I don't think you can spot it in the picture above. I was running with my cousins in India back when I was 12 on a gravel track and ended up tripping and falling, which jabbed my glasses into my forehead. Yeah, it wasn't a pretty sight, from what I hear (I decided to not look at myself in the mirror before it got stitched up). My mom's reaction was, "Good job, son."

Soup
What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?
Surviving my car accident last May. I don't care what people say about it just being because I was in a Volvo, that was the scariest thing to ever happen to me and I came so close to killing myself and hurting others. It was a miracle that the worst to come of it was totaling my car.

Salad
Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.
Rachel Ray. She's so freaking annoying on Food Network, and even worse on that new show of hers. *shudders* Why can't you be more like Giada?!

Main Course
What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")?
I'm going to plead the fifth here =P I don't think I care to publicly reveal the word I have in mind. Maybe if you press my brother he'll reveal it to you.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.
This is pretty easy. There's dancing/awesome, Texas/hot, Austin/badass, booze/delicious, etc.

Ice Ice, Baby

There's really no topic today interesting enough to devote an entire paragraph to. So instead, I thought I'd share a couple of my favorite pictures that I took today from all the ice that has accumulated from our "winter storm." Fortunately, classes are back on tomorrow at 11AM and so our cabin fever can cease (plus I can finally get a decent workout in). Sadly, I don't think it'll be warm enough to go to Copa. Anyway, on to the pictures.

Frozen grass!

The trees got pretty cold, too

Look how thick the layer of ice was on our stairs!

I've probably mentioned this before, but just a reminder: it's always a good idea to try buying your books online before going to your college's official book store because they have rip-off prices. This article is just more along the lines of that with regard to a site called Chegg that provides a free online marketplace for students to buy/sell their textbooks. I'm curious as to how they manage to stay in business like this though. Remember how I reported that IE 7 reached 100 million downloads? It turns out that this didn't correspond to a jump in market share but rather virtually all the downloads were upgrades from IE 6. Guess they didn't really dent Firefox's share after all. Ouch. Apparently, there's a new application called Joost coming out using P2P technology to show you TV, though I'm not sure if it's real TV or just video podcasts (I have a feeling that it's a little of both). Anyway, I signed up for the beta and will give you guys the scoop if I get in. One of the largest search engines for torrents, isoHunt, has been shut down by its primary ISP. They promise to be back online tomorrow though, and are unabashed in their efforts to provide its aggregating services. That's the spirit! Don't let The Man get you down, isoHunt! I reported on Sunday that Cingular was becoming AT&T, though my explanation wasn't very extensive. If you didn't catch Monday's Colbert Report, then you'll want to see this for the full explanation of the name change. Lastly, if you're a web developer, then you'll foam at the mouth when you see this.

Let me start you out with some trailers here. The first is for a Korean monster movie called The Host, and word on the grapevine is that it's one of the best films of its genre. The trailer gets me interested in it because it seems like a slightly different kind of plot line and I genuinely am curious as to what happens in the end. The other trailer is for Sunshine, and it looks really intense, but I can't see myself really getting into it. It does have a semi-realistic premise though, and it is Danny Boyle (of 28 Days Later fame). There are rumors floating around that Robert Rodriguez is getting tired of waiting on Angelina Jolie for Sin City 2 and has decided to try to vie for Rachel Weisz (who I think would be a much hotter choice) instead. I wouldn't be surprised if he was looking for another actress, the question is who. Lastly, I found a pretty crazy spoiler for Spider-man 3, but I want to caution you that it's an extremely bad idea to read this as it pretty much reveals the end of the movie. I decided to read it to see if it would improve my opinion of the movie, and I think it has in a way. It provides an interesting enough ending to properly conclude a Raimi-directed trilogy of Spider-man movies, though I'm not sure how believable it would be.

Now for a scientific Wednesday Mind Hump (science has never been so humptastic):

1. Ben Franklin conducted many experiments with electricity. What is your favorite gadget or appliance that uses electricity?
Probably my computer =P Even though I've been iced in for two days it's still kept me plenty entertained.

2. Ben also invented Bifocals. They help your eyes see better as they age. What sense or part of your body do you wish could be improved?
My eyesight sucks, so probably that. Or maybe my hair. My hair grows too fast and I haven't found a better hairstyle than the one I currently maintain. I'm ready to go for a change in my hair, if it's possible.

3. Ben Franklin lived in Philadelphia. What comes to mind when you think of Philadelphia?
Other than cheese steaks? Um, well I think it was our nation's first capital? Or so Haley Joel Osment claims.