No broadcast flag

Why the broadcast flag won't work. This is what I've been spouting for months. If anyone cares, the MPAA CEO's side of the story is here... what a load of crap. And now Intel has the cojones to sneakily slip new DRM into our hardware and refuse to tell us how it works or what it does. It smells like the MPAA and/or RIAA handed Intel a large "donation" under the table, which makes me want to stick with AMD CPUs even more now. No DRM is a good DRM.

Back in Exile

I was reading an article online earlier this week talking about new forms of music programming including online playlists like Live365 and one thing mentioned in the article is that it usually takes about six listens for a consumer to really like a song enough to buy it. After having heard the new Audioslave album Out of Exile about two dozen times this past week, I have to go back and change my opinion about it.

I think I just needed to get over the "new music shock" of the album, my mind opened up to it. Or maybe I'm just liking it because it's Audioslave. Maybe there is some subliminal message in the music that makes me like it? Who knows... all that I know is that I really like the album now. I could probably do without track 4 ("Doesn't Remind Me") and I still have my reservations about track 10 ("Dandelion"), but the album kicks ass otherwise... my personal favorites are tracks 7 ("The Worm") and 12 ("The Curse"). The distortion effects, lyrics, and overall sound of track 12 just give me chills and the whole song just has a feeling of being a grand ending to a wonderful album. It's too bad they didn't release a DualDisc version of the album though, but this has quickly risen to the top of my highly-recommended list. All hail the return of Audioslave.

Visions of the future

According to an article posted on CNN, complete brain dumps will be possible by the year 2050. Our civilization's technology is growing at such a fantastic rate that even the poor would be able to afford such a thing shortly thereafter. The article also goes on to explain other possible uses of future technology including virtual business meetings and 'concious' computers capable of feeling human emotions.

I'm all for advanced technology and integration, but there must be some sort of limit. One possibility cited by the article is an airplane that would be afraid of crashing... great, just what we need: Bob from Tripping the Rift or HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the reasons I enjoy using computers is because they are fast and emotionless tools that get the job done quickly and accurately. Introduce human emotions and the "quickly and accurately" benefits diminish proportionately. Granted, humans are capable of fantastic feats in dire situations because of these emotions (often in combination with adrenaline). And love? It is by far one of the most powerful emotions... can you imagine a computer stalker that can track your every move and action through various networks? It almost sounds like a futuristic horror movie to me.

Stan Lee one said "With great power comes great responsibility." The possibilities of these next-generation technologies sound fantastic, but I believe that emotional computers and immortality were never meant to be.

Strangest cross-licensing product

All right, now I've seen everything. Taking the crown of strangest cross-licensed product is the Darth Tater toy from Playskool. And I thought the idea of iPod Socks was bad....

Imminent Duality

Sweet... I just heard the full version of Fallen Angels on the radio again and they are saying that June 17th is the new release date of the new album Duality from Ra. As an added bonus, the fan site now has a flash jukebox with tracks from the new album and more. I'm not so stoked after hearing the new Audioslave album (Out of Exile) online, but hearing these new Ra tunes really gets my blood pumping. Here's to more fantastic Ra tunes!!

Red rules

Personally, my favorite color is blue. There is a new study out now suggesting that the color red actually helps sports teams by giving them a slightly higher adrenaline boost. So far, the color red has also been proven to help drive food and drink sales... McDonald's and Coke are prime examples of this. Like the article says, sports officials may have to start taking colors into account to make sure things are fair and equal between teams. So does this mean that our local Phoenix Suns should change to a red and purple color scheme to take the NBA championship?

More on the lawsuits...

Okay, six hours later and the site is now completely disappeared, trackers and all. Out of curiosity, I decided to test out one of the new features implemented in the latest version of Azureus, the distributed database. I did a search for one of the more popular shows on TV that was being tracked by btefnet. Of course, the program could not connect since the trackers no longer exist, but within five minutes, I was able to connect to at least 60 other people online through the program and still start up the download. The MPAA has just made it a little harder to get the TV shows but with fantastic technology like this, the torrents are still capable of working without the trackers.

As I said in my previous posting, new sites are naturally going to spring up in the absence of these and existing alternate sites are going to start seeing an increase in traffic as well. Just to reiterate, the industry needs to take a hint from the music business and look into offering up legal downloads. The SciFi Channel is a bold example of this, offering up the first episode of their series Battlestar Galactica online for free with four deleted scenes and no commercials. How's that for a bonus? The technology is here now and the demand is here, but a majority of the television networks are ignorant, oblivious, or just plain greedy and don't want to even try. I say let the MPAA waste their money on all of these lawsuits--they will never end. Maybe after they've lost enough money they will start to wise up.

More MPAA lawsuits...

*sigh* It's a sad day... another round of MPAA lawsuits are being slapped down on TV show torrent sites and my favorite, btefnet, is among them. As of this posting, nothing is changed on their web site. I'm sure that many more will spring up in their absence though, much like the current wave's popularity came from the fall of Suprnova. When will Hollywood get a clue and start to offer this kind of stuff up for legal downloading? I, for one, am fully willing and glad to help support my favorite television shows for a small and reasonable download fee. I'd much rather watch network programming on my own time without commercials, but when will the MPAA let me do that? I don't want to wait to own the DVDs and I don't always have the time to sit down and watch the shows when they are being aired. I'm actually starting to consider getting myself a TiVo or some equivalent DVR hardware just so I can do just that. Is anybody in Hollywood listening??

Miscellany

Random thoughts. Lots going on here and there. Ever have your heart tell you one thing is right and your mind tell you the opposite is right? That's what I'm at right now... the same day I realized this, I drew the High Priestess as my tarot card of the day.

Wendy's is giving away free Frostys this weekend. Free food is always good.

Star Wars: Episode III comes out soon and the reviews are mostly positive.

A series of colored rooms boggled my department's minds for the majority of a day last week and a flash puzzle called Gridlock has been occupying my spare minutes and breaks at work. I'm just glad to be done with the Pep Boys rebate offer setups at work for the month already.

I'm irritated that everywhere I go, everyone is out of this Sony home theater system, so I had to settle on a super-snazzy Philips DVD home theater system. I still need a separate receiver with digital inputs to plug in my computer or PS2 though.

Bah. Give the world some time, and the chaos falls into order. Step far enough away from the impact point and marvel at the order and beauty of the chaos.

Yuck.

Now I know what lice and crabs look like and I see why they're called crabs. No, I don't have them, but somehow the kids managed to get some. I was up until after 1AM last night trying to clean them up and also clean up any possibly contaminated areas in my apartment. My legs and back ache from all the work and running around and I still feel exhausted, but everything is pretty much back to normal now. I spent about $20 just to get the kit to kill the damn things, so I'm not too happy about that either. *sigh* Just when you think life is starting to settle down, the fates throw something like this at you. Well just like before, I laugh in their faces because it's over now... or at least until next weekend when the instructions recommend a followup cleaning just to make sure any newly-hatched lice get caught. Ick.

Life is good

Nothing special to post... life is good. The utilities I wrote for work are finally getting deployed this week. I get paid Friday. New episodes of Lost start up this Wednesday. *sigh* How much better can it get? Life is good.

Beltane

Wow, is it here already? Blessed Beltane to the pagans out there. It's strange, all day yesterday I kept catching a familiar smell in the air. I recognize the smell from many magickal shops I've visited around here, but I'm not entirely sure what that smell is. I just find it funny that it's very strong the day before the sabbat... almost as if the winds were trying to tell me something or remind me of something. I still haven't figured it out and I probably won't have time to today because I have to go into work. I was really looking forward to not having to work today, but I need to make up seven hours and I would really not see that much pay missing from my check this Friday. It's been a peaceful morning so far so I hope the rest of the day goes this nicely. Blessed be and good day.