Thursday, February 26, 2009

Shutdown '09 Part 1 Day 8

Hello Everyone! Such good news today...


First, one of my all time favorite shows, Futurama, MAY be coming back to Fox for a 6th season. What a good voting system DVD sales have turned out to be...

Here a good period piece on the internet, way back when chat rooms were still dope (Oreo anyone?) , web pages could be made by scripts on AOL-which was one of only a few ISP's (AOL, Compuserve and Excite I think were the big ones of the time). It's the internet of 1996, peep it for an idea of how far we have come in just 13 years. This is why we will never be like our parents when it comes to technology, it has literally become entrenched in our lives and there is no way to go back.

Don't call it a Skycar if it is not this Skycar...

Big up to Linux as finally being a blip on Microsoft's radar worth paying attention to. Also, WTF is up with Microsoft banning Lesbians on Xbox Live?! Listen, there are few things gamers consider hotter than any girl that is not repulsed by them, one of those things are lesbians that are not repulsed by them. No offense to lesbians as I know this sounds a bit demeaning, but it isn't. If you did not think two chicks hooking up was hot you wouldn't be a lesbian, don't be surprised when other people feel the same way you do. Get with the program Microsoft...

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Shutdown '09 Part 1 Day 7

Hello All,
Back in bean town, the trip to NYC was pretty fun and the bus ride back was easy breezy. Here is some new information from the interwebs

Some not so surprising news about the apps that are flying out of the iPhone app store. Apparently these apps are not inspiring use past the first day after they have been downloaded. If you know anyone with an iPhone you have already seen this phenomenon. Take a gander at the screens and you'll probably see 4 to 5 pages of apps. Ask the individual how often they use them and I guarantee some of those apps have not ever been used once after downloading. This is not a problem however because if you think of the iPhone as a truly mini computer, or computing light there is bound to be software that you might need a few times but don't want to have to download over and over again. A good example would be the rocket cab app, this app uses your location and shows local cab companies. You may not need this every day or even every weekend, but when you do need it's gonna suck to have to download it at that time. If you're interested here are some more analytics from the app store.

News from Netflix reports that the company sees its future in streaming. They already have a streaming only service for Starz content and are considering adding content from other distributors like HBO or Showtime...

More news from the Pirate Bay Trial...A few days ago marked Day 5 in the trial and the prosecutors are not looking very good. Apparently neither is the defense.

Thought I would give a shout out to some more Web 2.0 sh!t, Ubiquity is trying to change the way we see and manipulate the web content we use everyday.

Some new isht from Darpa, actually is not new but now making cyborg insects is closer to being a reality than ever before.



I'm still sifting through emails so I might have more to report later...

Friday, February 20, 2009

Shutdown '09 Part 1 day 4

Yo Yo Yo,
Today i find myself doing some remote blogging from NYC (my hometown). I must say that it is awesome to be back here. There really is no place like it, and while Boston is a pretty ok substitute nothing beats being back home. I have caught up on some emails and have a few things to log after the jump.


First a look at the real G2, HTC's new mobile handset the Dream was announced at the Mobile handset conference. Pretty snazzy but will is snatch the hearts and minds of the tech elite? I hope so, even though I own an iPhone those lazy fockers at apple won't do anything with any expediency unless they have some good competition. HTC is going to be that competition (I say they already are, just not in the states).

More news on smart phones as a new one, branded the Bar Of Soap promises to not only switch screen views (from portrait to landscape) with the help of accelerometers but also switch phone modes. Hold the phone like a camera and the camera function pops up, hold it to your face like a phone and a keypad pops up. Considering how sketchy this switch can be on an iPhone, I don't know that I like my phone functions to be tied into orientation but more power to them.

Now on to Wisconsin where they have just suspended a girl for texting during a math class. Now good etiquette says that when in a setting such as a a class room or boardroom texting should be kept to a minimum (unless you're the boss). it's rude and distracting to be sure, but a suspension? Apparently the girl lied about having a phone and tried to hide it in her ass area, so she knew she was guilty and some punishment should be dolled out but the police report I think is a bit much.

More news from the trial against my favorite source of new media, The Pirate Bay. Apparently not only have 50% of the charges been dropped, but the defense lawyers have requested that all other charges be dismissed based on the inability of the prosecution to prove their case. Also because they are so lovable, the 4 owners of the site have gotten an unsolicited following of hackers who are tarnishing the sites of those that are prosecuting the co-owners, the first one in the cross hairs being the IFPI. Serves 'em right, but it is not helping the case of those on trial and incidentally one of the owners, Peter Sunde, has asked that the hackers stop, claiming

"Our case is going quite well as most of you have noticed. In the light of that it feels very bad that people are hacking websites which actually puts us in a worse light than we need to be in"

Sorry Peter...

And for fans of Yelp, the popular user driven food review site, it seems that the admins and reps of the site are getting a little mafioso on that ass. Restaurants owners are claiming that the reps are calling the restaurants soliciting ad purchase agreements and letting the owners know that if they DO buy an add, maybe they (the reps of the site) could take care of some of those negative reviews that the restaurant has received. If this is true is pretty terrible and proves that anything that humans touch that involved money turns to shit. Even the noblest of causes.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Stuck on Repeat




Welcome Little Boots to the neu wave of pop that is happening (sounds a lot like the old wave of Pop...but her song is sick).

Shutdown '09, Part 1, Day 1
























So I am at the beginning of two weeks off from work. My company has unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) shut its doors for the next two weeks to save some dollars. Apparently shutting our doors for a week saves a significant amount of jobs, I would rather not go to work then have me or someone I know (or even don't know) get laid off so this is pretty cool. Besides the fact that it is eating away at my built up vacation like no other (don't ask me to do anything in 2010, I will not have any vacation time), it does make me feel like I am back in college for a x-mas break or something. All the same, I have a few things to share today, starting with those crazy folks who work for the state governement of Utah.

Apparently the entire government was taken by a 419 type scam, the likes of which have been around for several years. A popular internet meme in the short time that we have had to build and recognize such memes, any self respecting connected American should never fall for this. Tragic, but what do you expect from the home state of the Mormons... (sorry Mormons, that was obligatory. I really don't have a problem with your religion, at least the mainstream parts. Read aloud, all religion origin stories sound ridiculous).

And yesterday was the start of what's sure to be a closely watched trial between the runners of the site "The Pirate Bay" and the IFPI. Reportedly if the case goes the way everyone thinks it's going to go, many of the interweb's torrents will die or become increasingly unreliable. Here's hoping that people don't vote the way they have been conditioned to vote.

Lastly, I saw this when reading about a competition/showcase to design future cityscapes. Pretty cool...

Monday, February 09, 2009

Auto Tune in the News...

Here's an article from Time discussing its ubiquitous nature.  And another one from the Daily News on how T-Pain is the master of Auto Tune (just call him Sho'nuff).

Friday, February 06, 2009

First Layer Tennis Match of the Second Season

Man I really just love this concept...

PSA!

Don't go to that website on your parking ticket, it could be a scam!

You Will Hand Over the Money or I will cut out your stomach and feed it to my Children!

What is going on in Denver?  How are you going to have a guy rob 2 7/11's with a weapon from a fictional tv series?  Just to throw it out there I always wanted a Bat'leth...

Also a cool new feature from Google so when you lie to your friends about where you are they will be able to call your bluff.

And last but not least India is brought back down to the earthly realm and downgrades their $10 Laptop to a $10 wireless storage device.  Still pretty cool, but that was a ridiculous claim to begin with.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Comcast says "Let's Get Three Holes Goin'..."

Here's a story from Arizona, apparently the price you pay for watching football on Comcast's Analog channel is some sweet sweet porn interrupting an awesome game.  At least there hasn't been some wicked ass backlash a la 'the nip slip' of a few years ago.

Remember Photoshop Tennis??






Coudal Partners is back with their latest season of photoshop tennis (now called Layer Tennis). Click the link to go to the page and sign up for season tickets. I am not a graphic designer (IANAGD?) but I do enjoy the graphic design field. These guys also send out pretty funny emails every once in a while that you can sign up for. There was a time when I considered playing Patt Minto in a photoshop tennis match, then after realizing that he would totally kick my ass (thanks in no small part to his master's in new media&design) I reconsidered. I will take him or anyone else on in Solidworks Tennis, if anyone wanted a challenge, and if anyone wanted to by me the couple thousand dollar program to play on.