Looking Backwards and Forward

This may end up being my last post of 2007 because I'm going to the Texans game tomorrow and Monday night is my brother's New Year's Eve party so I'm going to be pretty busy. I've already fallen behind in my projects! User authentication without cryptography is killing me. Anyway, I wanted to piggyback on Ars Technica's summary of the past year and predictions for next year, in true end-of-year fashion. They argue that 2007 was the year of open source, online video (and user generated content), casual gaming, RIAA lawsuits, and climate. While I've encountered all those things (though I didn't get sued), I don't think they quite characterize the year, except for the online video one. In my opinion, there were few things to characterize this year. Besides online video there was mp3s gaining more ground (e.g. Amazon Digital Downloads emerged), that little thing called the iPhone, Apple cracking down more on rumor mills, the steep freefall of Vista's popularity, the renewal of World of Warcraft as digital crack, viral marketing (especially via blogs), and 300 (everyone freaking keeps saying that line and it's not funny anymore) among several summer hits (that were actually entertaining). Piracy was a hot button issue, yes, but it has been every year for the past few years. These are scattered things (except for the first two) that didn't really dominate the year but were pretty big deals and hopefully you remember them and can reminisce. If not, you can probably find news on all of those things in my archives.

What about 2008? I'm never that great at predicting the future, I just occasionally get lucky with Apple announcements. I know that for me it will be a huge year because I'm taking the frightening plunge in moving to an entirely new city and starting my first permanent full-time job. In technology as a whole though, Ars Technica bring up the good prediction of the war of the iPods. I definitely see that. I also see a war of iPhone clones upon the horizon though, which they mentioned also. I think OS tensions will rise as people stick to XP, which will remain a magnet for viruses and worms. I think people will finally be able to buy Wiis on-demand, though the Xbox 360 will still hang on and continue to beat the PS3. Of course, the Wii will get very few new games though because it's a Nintendo console. I see PC gaming gaining some increase in popularity. I see the writer's strike ending in some compromise that will ultimately hurt the writers years down the line. I see more television going online and on-demand entertainment gaining a lot of steam. Hell, surveys already show that people like watching shows online and it's helping measure ratings more accurately. And I see piracy getting stronger than ever as the MPAA and RIAA martyr more and more people. Oh, I also think we'll see more solid-state disks and Flash memory used in more places. That's all I've got though! What are your predictions, Nostradamus?

Going back to this year, DVice has a great look at why the iPhone dominated (despite all the pundits who claimed it would fail due to price): they didn't inundate people with choice. There are too many iPods, there are too many crappy phones, and in this modern-age (as I've mentioned before several times) people have to make too many decisions. They get stressed out! It should be easy to pick out and use your phone, and many people are willing to pay crazy amounts of money to reduce the complexity of their lives. That's an important concept, especially in software. Don't tell me about how the iPhone doesn't support Flash or 3G or blah blah blah, the people who are buying it clearly don't care that much. It works and they're happy. Some of them hack, and that's good and well for them. The point is, Apple's strategy worked.

I hate to talk about Apple so much, but I have more interesting news from Cuppertino: they're trying to patent a process where people can add themselves to queues for products when they're on the go. So you could order something from Best Buy when you're heading to the gym, and they'd text you when it's ready so that you could go pick it up right away. Or maybe it could skip long lines at Starbucks while you're on the way there? On the flip side, it could also track your orders: good for businesses, bad for your privacy. Apple doesn't always act on these patents, but this could be interesting, if not scary. The other big news is that the movie studios are realizing that iTunes is here to stay and are ready to talk movie rentals. No information yet, the point is that iTunes is really gaining clout with the studios for them to consider this.

One more tech tidbit: I liked this list of startup tips. It's concise, comprehensive, and interesting. It's worth a skim.

As for movies, just two things. There's a new trailer for Harold and Kumar 2. Maybe it's just because I love the first one, but I really enjoyed that trailer. I'm definitely looking forward to it coming to theaters. The other thing is to look out for these Indiana Jones 4 promotional crates at your local theater:

Pigs Fly: Apple is Selling DRM-Free Music

Lost a friend tonight...kind of disappointing and disheartening in a lot of ways. I'm glad that I have something else in my life that's great that I haven't screwed up, and I hope that I don't screw up. Anyway, back to the topic at hand: no, amazingly enough it is not an April Fool's Joke. I definitely thought it was and almost didn't even read the article, but it's true. Yeah, this is kind of an intense move, but so far it's kind of a pilot program with EMI. You can either buy the DRM-laden tracks with lower quality at $1 a pop, or pay an extra 30 cents to remove the DRM and get higher quality. What I'm curious about is why Apple is doing this. Of course to nerds, this is awesome. We've all been clamoring for an end to DRM and all that good stuff. I guess Apple is banking on the current dominance of the iPod and their perceived superiority of iTunes. I wonder if other labels will follow suit, and if this will actually work. Yeah, there are a couple of other services that sell DRM-free music, but mostly for small-time artists and indie labels, and this could be a huge deal. I think they're just testing the waters for now, but I hope that the response is positive, lest we all be shown as being liars when we've cried out that DRM is the devil. Should be interesting, nonetheless.

Staying on that musical track (no pun intended), looks like we'll be seeing legal guitar tabs back on the web very soon in the wake of the big OLGA takedown. Musicnotes is trying to launch a service that would provide the tablature with advertising, and that revenue would then go to the copyright holders. I think it's kind of funny since people are coming up with these tabs based on their ears, so it really doesn't warrant royalties for the artists unless they can prove that the transcriptions are perfect, but that's just my opinion.

I missed a lot of April Fool's Pranks because of how packed my Sunday was, but you can see some of the top ones here. I personally always love the ThinkGeek goodies, and this year I like the WiiHelm best.

It has now been announced that the iPhone will be released on June 11. Not much else to say about that, but I felt that it's noteworthy because I'm sure we'll be seeing a deluge of even more editorials revolving around this date.

Circuit City is laying off 3,400 employees and outsourcing some of their IT employees. Plus, they're closing 60 stores. Anyone else think that they're digging a hole for bankruptcy?

One more one-liner: if you're interesting in buying an HD set then you should totally read this article and learn more about the different kinds. Definitely very basic information that's not commonly known at all, but it's very concise.

Blades of Glory took center stage this weekend in the box office with $33 million, which I thought was a bit low for the comedy suited for most ages, but is still a strong opener with Meet the Robinsons only $8 million behind and 300 holding less than half that at #3. Most notable though was TMNT's enormous dip to under $10 million. Ouch, so much for turtle power.

I missed a couple of trailers. Yahoo Movies has an entertaining trailer for Ocean's Thirteen (if they make another and call it "Ocean's Fourteen", I will boycott it), though I didn't really laugh during it. Still, I think it's a better plot than the second movie, and they don't seem to be trying to hard to bring back Julia Roberts this time. If you can stand the MTV site for four minutes, they have a decent trailer for Hostel 2. It doesn't make it look much different from the first, but I'm sure that it'll be very disturbing all the same.

It looks like Quentin Tarantino has been working on the script for Inglorious Bastards and is using the time off he's taking to promote Grind House to also finish up on writing Inglorious Bastards. I think it's supposed to be a cool, WWII ensemble movie, and I'm really interested to see what Tarantino does with it. Can't wait for a script review!

Lastly, Dreamworks is doing a Shrek the Halls Holiday special for this winter, presumably to help promote Shrek the Third. Oh, and there are already plans for a fourth film. Can we say "milking a new animated franchise way too much"? I think that we're going to see a drastic reduction in quality if they just keep pumping out these movies.

Now for some Monday Madness:

1. Where did you go on your last vacation?
Vacation? I don't have time for vacations! =P More seriously: Canada with my parents like two years ago. Unless you count my extended trip to Seattle in January to do interviews with Microsoft a vacation? It was fun, exciting, and slightly relaxing.
2. Would you go there again? Why or why not?
Canada: probably, but more for the skiing than the sightseeing. I'm sure I'll do a trip to Vancouver this summer. As for Seattle: I'll be there this summer, so yeah ;)
3. How many vacations do you take in one year?
1 at the most. I plan on taking more when I graduate, but it's just a lot of money to spend while I'm still in school.
4. Where would you REALLY like to go on your next vacation, if money was no issue, and how long would you stay?
Probably London. I hear good things and I haven't been to Europe practically at all. My cousin is stationed in Germany, I'd be interested to check that out as well. Another place I'd love to visit is Tokyo, but that'd be a much more challenging trip, I'd imagine.
5. Do you put a little money aside each week (or month) to save up for your vacation?
Nope. I'm Indian, I save enough as it is! No need to make a special travel fund.

The Most Innovative

PC World has put up its standard list of the 20 most innovative inventions of the year, and I decided to talk about that here rather than the Microsoft scandal again since I don't want to be redundant. They put Office 2007 at the very top, which is no doubt quite provocative. Apparently, the ribbon and the live preview features really are that stunning. Is it really more innovative than the dual core processor though? I guess the dual core idea has been around for a while, but it's still a pretty big jump in the processor industry. However, the Wii should totally be ahead of Parallels, especially since virtualization is not a new concept. Some of their other selections, including that 750 GB hard drive, the Sony Reader, and Farecast, where spot-on. Some though were kind of strange, I thought. What innovation goes into a Blu-ray disc burner? Or the T-Mobile Dash? I definitely disagree with the rankings, in that sense, but if you ignore the order then it is a pretty good list. Personally, I would've put the Wii at the top with Office 2007 right behind it because the Wii was a totally new kind of concept and very ballsy whereas Office was just a clever upgrade to existing software. You can't have innovation without the kind of guts that Nintendo had.

So back to Microsoft. Joel Spolsky believes firmly that their little gift (see yesterday's post) is bribery, and he poses a convincing case. No matter what, the gift recipients will feel an obligation to return the favor, and it's really Microsoft trying to buy good will and publicity (though it hasn't worked all that well). I didn't know that Consumer Reports actually buys everything it reviews. In a slight backpeddling move, Microsoft has been telling the chosen bloggers to either return the laptops when they're done or to give it away. Why didn't they say this all along? Though I guess it wouldn't have made much of a difference, because people still would've jumped on their back; such is the consequence of being a giant. Gizmodo put up a pictorial of the hottest female bloggers, but the best ones by far (as far as quality of their content, not looks) are Amanda Congdon and Karina Stenquist (of MoBuzz), which is why I've finally added them to my links on the right sidebar. Is it just me, or does Karina look like she's 17? The funniest one is Wendy Chen though because of Girls Out Loud. If you've ever wanted to prank text message your friends, you'll love this. I really want to use AnonTxt, but I'll probably wait til classes start again. Lastly, stop going to Dictionary.com and start using Ninjawords for all your definition needs. If you use YubNub, ninj is the command and it's quite handy.

As usual, movie news is in a bit of a post-holiday slump. We have a trailer for I Think I Love My Wife, the upcoming Chris Rock flick, and I like the premise of the movie. However, Chris Rock movies have historically sucked and blown (except for, of course, Dogma), so I'm not too optimistic about a solid execution here. We have a couple more posters for Smokin Aces and they look pretty neat, but not as neat the other ones did. Lastly, we also have a few more pictures from Bandidas, and Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek look so hot together that I could not pass up the opportunity to post this picture of them from the new shots:



Now for the 3x Thursday meme:

1. So, what did you think of 2006? Was it a good year? How so/not?
I don't know. It was good and bad in so many ways. I didn't quite do the things I wanted to do this year, and I did break my beautiful GPA, but at least I had a fun internship and finally joined a social club (TLD) where I've begun to open up more. Plus, I did get my A in Automata theory, and my brother did get married.

2. What was the best thing that happened in 2006? What was the worst?
Definitely my brother's wedding. What an awesome weekend! My only regret was spending probably a little too much time around my cousins (apparently, people thought I had a girlfriend because of this), but oh well. We all had fun! The worst thing was definitely my near-death car accident.

3. What is your forecast for 2007? Got anything big planned?
Hopefully a nice, stable girlfriend. A weird thing to forecast for a 20 year-old guy, right? But I don't like playing the game, it's just irritating. I'd like to find a fun girl who loves dancing and can help take my mind off of school work. I think by the end of the Spring semester I'll be even more outgoing and hopefully brimming with confidence as I get more involved with TLD. I really should've joined a social organization sooner than my Junior year. Also, I'm hoping for a really fun internship, and bright opportunities for full time.

Console War Continues

I went to CompUSA today to get this Bluetooth headset that was free (Motorola H300), and so far so good. It's great to finally have a wireless headset! Anyway, the point is that on the way in I saw a big sign in front of the front door saying "We have the PS3," which I remarked to my dad had to be total crap because no one has PS3. Lo and behold, to the left is a picture taken by someone in an entirely different state at their local Wal-mart, and a similar story is taking place across the nation. What's going on? No one wants a freaking PS3 anymore! People literally have them sitting in their closets because they thought they could sell them off on eBay but the demand is lower than the supply now, which is low enough as it is. I guess it could be that people who want a PS3 just don't know that it's in stores, but it's the busiest time of year right now. If they're not selling like hot cakes now, when will they? In the mean time, the Wii has taken the lead in surveys and the Xbox 360 lagging far behind in second. What's really funny is that people are actually trading in their PS3s for Wiis! I still remember back when the PS3 was first unveiled how optimistic I was, compared with this E3 where it looked like junk, and now it's failing miserably. I'm inclined to believe that it can be saved, but it's going to take one Hell of a miracle (i.e. a really incredible killer app).

Mark Zuckerberg is officially a total moron. Leaked documents suggest that he wasn't even willing to sell Facebook to Yahoo for $1.6 billion, which is probably enough money to buy a small country. What does he think he has here? I don't see the site lasting for forever because he keeps alienating his users, and it's starting to become too big for its own good. People are starting to write it off as too mainstream. Anyway, I would've just sold and started another, better company with the cash. Have you wondered why the iPods are always the same price? I knew that Apple had some sort of deal where retailers had to follow their set prices, but I didn't know that it was really just minimum advertised price (MAP), as this article points out. Still, I have a feeling that Apple is threatening these retailers that they'll stop selling them their stuff if they don't follow their pricing. Is free advertising money really enough to sway them into creating a flat market for Apple products? If you like fun things in flash, you'll love this digital toy. It's just an intensely interactive drag-and-drop thing. Go ahead, try it out! It's just so cool. Anyway, also neat is this fake name generator. Apparently, it used to cost money before but is now free. Lastly, I have one more nifty thing for you: an optical illusion. It's not a joke, it really is an optical illusion. If you don't believe it, try going through it backwards.

The trailer for Black Sheep is up, and it's mildly amusing but I didn't actually laugh in it. It's a very similar kind of parody on horror movies as Shaun of the Dead, so if you appreciate that kind of humor you'll probably enjoy this one as well. Here's a crazy rumor for you: Keanu Reeves may be playing the lead role in the forthcoming Speed Racer movie, which shouldn't be too big of a shock since it is coming from the Wachowski Brothers. It sounds like a fairly reliable rumor though, so don't toss it to the wayside too quickly. Wizard has revealed some interesting tidbits from the comic book movies that are in production right now, and what I found most interesting is that Eva Mendes has actually been trying to increase her bust line for her role in Ghost Rider because her character in the comics is drawn rather busty. She looks pretty hot as it is, but far be it from me to discourage her from trying to naturally grow larger breasts. Anyway, speaking of hotness, Alicia Keys looks pretty smoking in this shot from Smokin' Aces, and you can find other new pictures over here.



I'm going to go for the Saturday Six meme today:

1. How many Christmas Cards did you receive from people you hadn't sent cards to, after the "mailing deadline?" Did you send a card anyway?
My parents do all the card mailing, so no idea =)

2. At this point, do you weigh more or less than you did on January 1, 2006? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Hopefully more. I've been trying to gain weight, obviously in muscle not fat, and I think it worked. But I don't think I got a whole lot bigger.

3. When the clock strikes Midnight on New Year's, will you be at home, at a party, or somewhere else?
I'll be at home and at a party since the party is at my place! My brother is cranky and reluctant on the dancing, so I'm going to have to really blaze it up with the musical selection.

4. Take the quiz: What's your holiday stress level?

Your Holiday Stress Level Is Low

You take it easy over the holidays, and you only take on what you can handle. You know the holidays are about celebrating and fun - not standing in line at the mall!

What's Your Holiday Stress Level?

5. Have you ever been the designated driver at a party or outing with your friends?
I drove my friends home after a Halloween party, but I don't think any of them were close to drunk, we just didn't want to go in two cars to the same place.

6. Have you ever taken the keys and driven home a friend that you felt was too drunk to drive? If not, do you think you would attempt to if that situation ever arose?
Nope, but I definitely would. My friends have generally been pretty sensible about not driving when they're under the influence.

Don't expect another post from me until Tuesday. I don't imagine much happening tomorrow, hence my post being tonight, and I'll be going to mass and probably will spend the night with my cousins. On Christmas day itself, I'd be crazy to sit here and blog! Hope you all have fun, and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sony Sucks at Shipping PS3s

Sorry for missing my post last night guys, but I went to Copa and had a ton of fun! I think I'm definitely getting better at the salsa gig. Anyway, what's a four letter word for disaster? I'll give you a hint, it starts with an 'S' and ends with a 'y' and the middle is the opposite of 'off'. That's right, it's Sony! Their goal was to have shipped 400,000 units by now and didn't even make half of that! There's no way they'll even hit 1 million (as the had predicted) before the end of the year, while Nintendo sold nearly half a million Wiis at its debut. They're still idealistically sticking to their goal of 6 million units by March (the same goal as Nintendo, except that they can actually reach it), but I'd be impressed to even see 4 million. Even the Xbox 360 is clobbering the PS3. What went wrong? Planning! Whoever was running logistics for the PS3 release needs some sense. I don't know how Sony lets itself get in these precarious situations. I mean remember when they had their own proprietary format to compete with the mp3?! Once upon a time, they had a product called the PSP, which is funny because for every PSP I've seen in my life I've seen at least 20 different DSs around campus. I know I sound biased, but I speak the truth here: Sony is caught in a downward spiral. Can they be saved? Maybe. People buy consoles for the games. The GameCube was nice and small and cheap, but it just didn't have enough games to back it up whereas the PS2 had some real popular exclusives (*cough*GTA). If Sony can secure some high-profile franchises just for the PS3, or create some new ones, they pull their butts out of the fire. Until then, things are looking grim for them.

BitTorrent has acquired uTorrent, arguably the most efficient implementation of the bit torrent protocol. I found this a sort of surprising move, and the commmunity is pretty pissed because they believe that uTorrent will go from a nice lightweight torrent client to the studios' bitch, and that BitTorrent will decide to bloat it up. I think it's too early to complain, and I can only hope everything works out because I love uTorrent as a program in general. Anyway, Microsoft has released Live Search Books to rival Google's Book Search, which is funny considering how ironic Google's service was. It allows you to search full texts of non-copyrighted materials so far, and I don't see how this isn't just a blatant knock-off of a Google idea. Given the whole James Kim incident, one blogger has taken it upon himself to suggest a survival kit to hide away in your car, but I think he has too many items on there to make it reasonable. Granted, those would ideally all be nice to have when you may need them, but still quite a bit of stuff. Anyway, if you're responsible and smart enough you should definitely invest in that stuff. Lastly, because so few developers have a solid handle on how to design an attractive UI (*cough* like half the Google engineers *cough*), I just had to plug this neat article on color theory. Definitely a worthwhile read, and not even that long.

I have a couple of cool trailers for you guys today. One is for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which I think looks cool despite how bad the quality is on that trailer. What's much cooler though is the new trailer for 300, which I recommend watching in glorious HD because it's just that cool. I definitely want to see this movie at least as much as I wanted to see Sin City, which is saying a lot! Oh, and if you're really interested, there's a Hannibal Rising teaser trailer out there in another language. It's not much, mind you, but still a flash of really cool looking scenes. We have a poster for the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and a couple of pictures, which isn't too exciting, but we have so little news about that movie that I thought it was worth mentioning. Lastly, we have a few new posters for Hot Fuzz. They're clearly supposed to be humorous, but they're really not all that funny. I like the promotional images for like Reno 911 better.

The wedding photographer finally put up the pictures from the wedding, and they're stellar. Technically, they're all copyrighted him, but my brother paid big bucks for them so I'm going to take the liberty of posting one of my favorites (sorry, Michael =P):



He got a freaking awesome one of my brother and I (see my Facebook profile) that I'm definitely going to have blown up and framed, but I also kind of want the one framed that you see as my profile pic here on Blogger. Anyway, to counteract the copyright infringement thing, definitely use Michael for your special event because he's a-mazing and unobtrusive.

And now, for your favorite meme and mine, Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
Which language would you like to learn and why?
Probably Hindi because I feel weird to have Indian parents and not know any Indian language! All my friends did in high school (at least their local language). Spanish also, mainly to understand salsa though ;)

Soup
What's the funniest thing you've heard or read so far this week?
I'm not really sure, to be honest. Maybe a debate between Nirav and Nate about where Nirav put "it."

Salad
Which movie was so bad you couldn't watch the whole thing?
I don't think that's happened to me. I like to see the ending of crappy movies to see just how bad they get.

Main Course
If there were a holiday in your honor that didn't use your actual name, what would the day be called?
Tech Day? Day of Dancing? Hell if I know =P

Dessert
Name one movie which is coming out soon that you would like to see.
I'll go with 300.

Choice Sucks

Sorry, I know I missed yesterday's post, but I went right from arriving at my place in Houston to a bbq at my uncle's place and then came home totally exhausted (especially since I hit heavy traffic on the outskirts of Austin and people in Houston don't seem to understand how a tollway works). Anyway, I piggyback on Joel Splosky way too much, but he's way too brilliant for me not to. His latest post is a diatribe on why choice really hampers us rather than frees us. I have a good real-world example: I voted a few weeks ago and there were a ridiculous number of offices to vote for. Honestly, I was only educated on U.S. Senate candidates, U.S. House candidates, the governor positions, and the 7 propositions. Do I really care who the 15 judges are? Not really; especially since they're judges and should be unbiased. With so many things to decide on the ballot, it's no wonder that people don't care about voting. In fact, it's no wonder that many people who do vote suck at it. Similarly, it's no wonder that so many people aren't computer-literate: we're bombarded with too many choices. Joel's post focuses on what should be the simplest aspect of using Windows: leaving your machine. He counted 15 ways to do this if you have a laptop and reduced it down to just 1 choice. People who proclaim themselves as indecisive aren't really stupid people, they've just realized that having to deal with so many choices is kind of stressful. I think it's every computer scientist's duty to make people's lives simpler. My dad said the other day that people have become slaves to computers; maybe he's right. I think it should be my life's mission to fix that however I can, because it's not right for advancements in technology to make our lives any harder than they already are.

Wii impressions keep pouring out onto the web since like no one has a PS3 (or they do and don't care to talk about it), and one dad had some real positive things to share aside from a diatribe on Toys R Us's incompetency. I think what he points out will be a common trend: kids are excited by the interaction they get from the Wii because it's so different. They don't care about realism in graphics, they just want fun. Not everyone is pleased though: the creator of the Castlevania series thinks that the Wii controller is gimmicky and doesn't want to make a game for the console. I think he'll change his mind though because I'm sure he'll be coerced into another iteration given that a movie is in the works. I think this is kind of neat: Wired found a Java applet that explains how BitTorrent works. Worth a look if you're curious. CBS has been using YouTube and is pleased with their results. This is interesting because it's showing that YouTube is good for more than just copyright infringement and may lead to proving people like Dvorak wrong about the Google acquisition being disastrous. If you've been behind on this whole next-gen DVD war, this is a great, concise way to catch up. It's kind of ironic, HD-DVD should win but probably won't. Apple put out a new iPod Shuffle ad and I don't know why but I love it. I guess I just like that it's not another dancing silhouette. Lastly, if you've ever wanted to build your own PC, you should definitely give this a read. That's actually the first part of a series at Tom's Hardware, and everyone in the know knows that they're the definitive source on PC hardware so you can definitely trust them.



That would be one of two new one-sheets for Spider-man 3 (the other is just in a different hue). I think it looks pretty good and coincides with the conclusion of that first trailer we saw. Of course, I am a little worried about the Sandman plot line in this movie since him killing Ben Parker is really random. There's also a poster for Curse of the Golden Flower, but it's not quite as interesting. All I have left are a couple of mediocre trailers. One is for the remake of the old thriller The Hitcher, but I have no idea why they figured they needed to bring it back. The other is for Miss Potter, which sounded promising enough except that the trailer gives away 90% of the plot and it feels kind of boring.

Now for a Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. Red means stop. What song makes you stop and reflect on your life, or anything else?
Definitely "You Make Me Wanna La-La". Just kidding, that song is unbearable. I'd have to say "Get By" by Talib Kweli because it's so energetic but it definitely gets you thinking about the struggles of life that most of us will never have to experience and we should be grateful for that.

2. Yellow means caution or yield. What artist or band were you cautious about listening to for the first time, but ended up liking?
Probably The Decemberists. They didn't sound too appealing to me, but their songs really just stick with me. I don't know why, they just do.

3. Green means go. What song makes you want to go go go?
I immediately thought of "Cherry Lips" by Garbage. It should be obvious why if you've heard the song.

The Wii's Peaceful Release

Man, getting back to real life after a wedding sucks! I spent half the day thinking about the weekend, and I'm just glad that I only have 4.5 hours of class left before I go home to a barbecue tomorrow. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like I missed a whole lot over the weekend. The news I felt drawn to the most today was about the Wii, so let's start with that. It sold out handily over the weekend in North America without any reported violence, and Nintendo made a promise I have an easy time believing: four million units before the year is up. It'd be a miracle if we saw very many more PS3s before 2007, so don't get your hopes up. The Wii doesn't seem to be reselling quite as well on eBay (at least not with the same sex appeal), but I can definitely see the Wii going into the new year with a more positive buzz. Not all the first impressions are quite so rosy though, I've seen several complaints about the speed of the internet service, lacking component cables, and just overall problems with the virtual console (for playing older Nintendo titles). I wouldn't be too concerned though because I don't know of a console launch that has gone off without a hitch. The important thing is that they address these shortcomings sooner than later so that they can really get a leg up on the competition. Also, good to know that they haven't been indirectly responsible for people getting physically hurt yet.

Bill Gates is being quoted as praising the iPod still and claiming that the Zune really isn't so much a rival as a catalyst to get people to subscribe to the whole "sharing is caring" after school special. I could believe that given how much they push the WiFi feature over everything else, but they still handled the Zune release inexcusably sloppily. Meanwhile, Apple is preparing for their Black Friday sale and have assembled a handy holiday guide. I'm only plugging this because I didn't realize that the Apple store actually did a Black Friday sale with some pretty decent discounts. If you're a computer scientist (or one in training), or even a general math nerd, you'll love this pdf cheat sheet detailing stuff that I've spent many a time digging through old notes for or Googling for. I'm going to have to snuggle with this puppy late at night before big tests. Lastly, as an avid DRM hater, I like to plug articles like this criticizing the stupidity of DRM. I totally understand that piracy is wrong and all that, and I don't endorse it at all, but to alienate your customers to make a few more bucks (it really is just a few, in the end, when you think about it) is annoying.



Harry is just a little excited about the release of the teaser trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was a pretty good teaser, though I personally preferred the last movie's teaser. Anyway, it has some pretty good scenes in it, so it's worth checking out. In a surprising turn of events, the winner of the box office this past weekend was Happy Feet edging out Casino Royale, which I've heard was the better movie, by just a couple million bucks. Oh, and Borat managed to hang on to the number 3 spot. Not much new this coming weekend though that's notable except for the low-key movie The Fountain, so I'm curious to see what happens. Peter Jackson is officially off the project to bring The Hobbit to the big screen. I wasn't the biggest fan of the LOTR movies, but I don't see how anyone but him could make this one. Lastly, a pretty good trailer for Curse of the Golden Flower is online (featuring Gong Li and Chow-Yun Fat), but I was a little insulted by the obviously westernized background music they chose (you may recall it from Spider-man promotional materials).

Now for some Monday Madness:

1. In order to protect my computer from viruses, I use _______.
Zone Alarm and Claim-Free
2. I also use _______ for protection from spyware.
Spybot SnD
3. I don't spend nearly enough time _______.
playing guitar
4. The first person I usually talk to in the morning is _______.
myself (I don't talk to someone consistently in the morning)
5. It takes me about _______ to get ready in the morning.
30-40 minutes (including eating)
6. I keep all my appointments in/on _______.
my school planner
7. It takes me about _______ to fall asleep at night.
5-10 minutes

PS3 About to Fight Wii

You knew it was coming, the big battle between good and evil. By good and evil I of course mean the battle between the Wii and the PS3, in no particular order though ;) Anyway, the PS3 launch is a couple of days away and the Wii will be just a couple of days after that. In commemoration of the event, 1Up (which has some fun podcasts, by the way) has an article comparing the biggest aspects of the next-gen consoles from downloadable content to game outlook. It's a great read if you know nothing about either console because it shows you how sharply different they can be. What I love about this little battle here is that people buying either console aren't getting the same bloody thing with a few different games and slightly different graphics, but they're getting completely different machines for completely different types of games. You're getting a lot more power with a PS3 and some crazy RPGs and a great media machine since it can play Blu-Ray and DVD discs. With the Wii, you're getting a machine completely and utterly focused on the gameplay, including games from the past couple of decades, for about half the price in the end. One thing I feel it's important that people not do at this point is rank one above the other. I'll admit that I'm biased towards the Wii, but I don't think it's fair to compare it directly the PS3. Rather, appreciate the strong points of both and wait another 6 months before you start passing judgement on what's stronger.

Sorry, but I've got a bunch of Apple articles today to share. They're partnering with some big airlines to offer iPod integration, which sounds cool because then you could watch TV shows or movies on a screen on the back of the seat in front of you and charge your iPod as well. It's kind of ridiculous how widespread the iPod is becoming, and as cool as I think it is I think that Apple runs the risk of alienating the crowd of people who fear the mainstream. But screw them, I'd totally want to watch The Office or Diggnation on like a business trip on a real screen. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't allow you to re-download purchases, which I believe that Microsoft's Zune Marketplace will allow. On one hand, I think it makes sense that once you buy a song from them that you should be able to download it as many times as you want on authorized PCs since it's not like you can P2P share them or anything, but it really is the responsibility of the consumer to have the brains to back up their data. You can do it while you sleep, it's so easy. So why put the burden of stupidity on Apple? Ars Technica has a review of the new Shuffle, which I'm plugging because they have the best reviews of products (although I think they get just a tad too nit-picky on this one). Lastly, Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame has actually gotten a job at ABC hosting a weekly vlog and making appearances on newscasts as well. Not too shabby for an Internet celebrity, and the producer of Rocketboom should be kicking himself for letting her go the way he did for that new chick (who sucks, by the way).

The only movie news I have today is Bond related. AICN's Massawrym got to see Casino Royale and gives as true a review as you'll read on it stating explicitly that this is not the mainstream Bond you've come to know over the years. This is a first Bond movie (a prequel of all the movies, if you well), not just another sequel. Walk into this one understanding that, and maybe you'll enjoy it as much as he did. You can see the intros to all the Bond movies over here. I can't seem to get it to work, but I suspect that it's down at just this moment. When it does work, I'm sure it'll be totally sweet because the Bond intros are really fun.

Now for the Ten on Tuesday meme:

10 Things You're Thankful For
10. A cool service like Blogger for me to keep doing this for free.
9. Having discovered how fun dancing is.
8. Having met the people in CS I've met who I can geek out with and struggle through homework with (it is a heartwarming feeling to see your friends in Taylor basement the night before a big test to study with, I don't know why).
7. Having a handful of friends willing to stand by me when I really need them.
6. Knowing what I want to do for the rest of my life.
5. The strength to pull through and do well even in my harshest classes.
4. Going to school in Austin.
3. My brother finding the love of his life and said person being really awesome.
2. My family, especially both parents still being alive.
1. Being alive! I should've died like 3 times by now (seriously).

The PS3 Hits

In Japan, that is. You can see to the left here what you get in the box, and IGN has a number of articles that should answer your wildest questions regarding the launch of this behemoth. IGN does have a retail unit, but I believe it's another week before you can get one yourself, and if you manage to get one then you'll find a Blu-Ray copy of Talladega Nights inside. It has actually already sold out in Japan, but I think it would be wrong to claim that this implies a successful launch. Low yields on the Cell processor is restricting their supply (just 100,000 units in Japan), and the Japanese gamers are looking forward to the franchises they know will be on the PS3, which is why they're flocking to get one (plus, it's cheaper there than here). Also, their launch title line-up is very Japanese-centric, and it looks like American gamers will only have Call of Duty 3 and Rainbow Six: Vegas to look forward to for now. I'm sure that it'll sell out here from low supply, as well, but I think that you'll have to compare the absolute figures over a few months with the first months of the Xbox 360 and the Wii to get a good idea of people's interest. I, personally, could care less about this launch and was more delighted to see the Nintendo Wii start-up sequence. I love that the controller vibrates when you hover over buttons (see, Sony, we actually like vibration in our controllers). Game sales have been going south more recently though, so let's hope that the next-generation picks up the pace drop-off from the current one.

There's strong speculation that the iTunes music store may soon credit your individual track purchases towards the whole albums they correspond to so that you don't end up paying for the same track multiple times. Now that is a pretty brilliant idea, and would make iTunes even more popular if they pulled it off. Google Checkout has unveiled a couple of neat features: coupon creation and e-mail invoices. Plus, they're waiving transaction fees through the end of the year. I like where they're going with this service, and I'm glad that they're figuring out how to do what PayPal has done wrong (including customer service). A company called BlackArrow has sprung up basing itself around a fantastic idea: showing ads despite DVR forwarding and it looks like they're also aiming to improve the advertising model online. It's not near completion yet, of course, but I'd be real interested to see how people react to seeing ads like that. Lastly, this site is a really fascinating effort to find the most beautiful images in the world by randomly pairing them and having you vote on which you like better. It's fun to play around with if you're bored, and pictures like this are what's always inspired to keep taking pictures regularly. Here's one of my favorites:



I was a little surprised to find Borat at the top of the box office this weekend with $29 million, not only because it's an increase from last weekend (which is extremely rare), but it also doubled the grosses of Will Ferrell's Stranger Than Fiction, which had opened this past weekend. Also, Babel only weighed in at #6, though I suppose there wasn't a whole lot of publicity for it. Anyway, don't expect to see Borat at the top after this coming weekend's release of Casino Royale. The only other movie thing today is the trailer for Fanboys, which I thought was pretty funny. I love all the random Star Wars quotes and scenarios they decided to pepper throughout it. Not a whole lot of Natalie Portman in that trailer though, I'm afraid.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

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

1. Nick :: Fury


2. Focus :: Eye


3. Police :: Man


4. Miles :: Away


5. Earn :: Cash


6. Twice :: a Lady


7. Razor :: Mach 3


8. Personality :: Disorder


9. Dumped :: Girls


10. Reliable :: Car