And Now For Something Not At All Unusual

Students hate RIAA puppet company, Napster. What a surprise.

While several Universities have taken on Napster in an aim to provide a legal alternative to file sharing for students, according to a survey conducted at the University of Rochester, not a single student admitted purchasing a song through Napster during the Fall Semester of 2004.

That's right. No-one's buying, because Napster is full of DRM, only allows use under Windows, and won't allow purchased music to play in the iPod - the most popular MP3 player by a mile. What a great idea, RIAA - tell your company to make SURE it will fail, by totally refusing to do anything your customers want. That way, you can place EVEN MORE blame on the file-sharing networks, instead of your crappy business models and ongoing mismanagement. Woohoo!



Sony & Nvidia, sitting in a tree...
Sony and Nvidia claim their partnership will run deeper than PlayStation 3. What does that mean? Who knows? But it does indicate that Sony is unlikely to have the difficulty making future consoles backwards-compatible that Microsoft has. (With the Xbox 360, Microsoft changed from an Nvidia graphics chip to an ATI one, a move which makes it very very expensive to make the console backwards compatible with original Xbox games. They've dealt with this by licensing the drivers, etc. for "the most popular Xbox titles," which means if you want to play a lesser-known title, you're out of luck. Way to go, M$.)
I see a bright future: PlayStation 4, 5 years from now, able to play my PS1 games. You go, Sony & Nvidia.


Fujitsu has invented e-paper. That's right, e-paper. What I mean is, imagine a flexible screen that wouldn't lose the image if the power turns off, won't lose the image if the screen is bent, and is very, very thin - like, paper-thin. Right now, their prototypes can only display up to 512 colors, but still, man, this is 80's sci-fi territory here. How cool is that? Fujitsu rocks.


Sadly, the Pentagon's Super Electric Death Ray is on hold, along with all the other "directed-energy" projects. No money, apparently. Huh. This is actually kinda sad; some of them are really cool, in a very geeky sorta way. This one guy, Peter Bitar, has invented one that can throw a bolt of lightning, accurately, up to 28 feet - and can be set to feel like "broom bristles," or can flat knock your ass out. Now all they need is to figure out how to make it smaller. I mean, how cool is that? No darts - on - wires, no close range, just ZAP! I mean, you can throw LIGHTNING at someone. Dude, we need to give the science wonks more money to play with. They come up with some cool crap.


Ok, so if you're a landlord, and you realize that your one apartment is getting mail for 82 different people, what do you do? Why, call the INS, of course. Or, if you live in North Carolina, call the cops, who will bitch at you for opening other people's mail. Just like they did to Carol Chapman.

"I called the Elizabeth City Police Department and the first words out of their mouth was, 'Why are you opening mail that doesn't belong to you?'" Chapman said. "I told them, 'These people are using a fake address to get driver's licenses and insurance. This is the way terrorists got into New York, have you forgotten?'"

Way to investigate really obvious crimes, Elizabeth City. You have skills.
No, really.
You do.
I mean it.






Ok, I don't. You suck.


Note to self: If you ever decide to rob a bank, La Salle, Illinois is the place to go. Some guy DROVE UP TO THE DRIVE-THRU LINE, passed a note through the vaccuum tube to the teller saying the bank was being robbed, NEVER SHOWED A GUN, and drove off with 56,000 dollars. I sure hope the teller was fired. I mean damn.


Oh, and if you were worried about buying a Dell, because you'd heard bad things about their customer service, this will make you REALLY bite your nails. Dell apparently got tired of customers using their support forums on their website to ask questions like "why won't you fix the defective power supplies on this model?" and "why won't anyone help me?!?" so they just closed the support forums.
That's right, they just stopped taking complaints. If you bought a Dell, I hope you aren't having any trouble with it; be aware that their policy seems to be "too bad, foo!"


On a personal note, my fiancee and I are moving in the next couple of weeks - again - and so updates will be - how can I say this - spotty, for a few weeks at least. Then I will be back with full force and unendurable vitriol for anyone who thinks they can rip out a leopard's tongue without me knowing about it.

Let's Talk About TV

Ever heard of Battlestar Galactica?
Now, ever heard of the new one?
If not, ("No" to either or both counts,) let me explain.
BSG, the original, was a very, very bad (and therefore, perversely, enormously popular) space opera about human colony planets which were destroyed by a horrible alien race known as the Cylons. The survivors then began a trek across the galaxy, led and defended by the titular Battlestar Galactica, a huge "carrier" - style spaceship.
Trust me. Although it was often fun, more often FUNNY, the original was not as good as the many other space shows that have come out, then or since. What it was, was consistently fairly creative. Lots of rabid fans will curse me; I don't care. It wasn't a good show. It was an enjoyable show, but that's not always the same thing, now is it?

Heresy, I know.
Just wait, it gets worse.
Now, the Sci-Fi channel has recreated the show; I use the term "recreated" honestly, because in fact there's very, very little in common with the original show.

Let me explain.

The new BSG is now, with the premiere of Season Two tomorrow night at 10 Eastern, the highest-rated original series in the history of the Sci-Fi Channel.

This is not an accident.

Oddly enough, even a show that was as violently cheesy as the original series has its purists, and reactions from fans of the original have been *ahem* fairly spirited. I just wish they'd watch the new one, even once; it's HUGELY superior to the original, and in my opinion, the best, and most original show on television.
In the new version, the Cylons were originally created by humans as sort of cybernetic servants. The problem was, the Cylons could think, and promptly found God, decided that the humans were sinners, and exterminated all but about 50,000 of them. Now, notionally, the human fleet is moving towards Earth - and just as in the original series, no-one really knows where that is, exactly - but the series is much more devoted to the DRAMA than it is to finding Earth. For example: the Cylons have created "duplicate humans" which are effectively undetectable - and which are often programmed to think they ARE humans, until some crucial moment where their programming takes over and they shoot someone, or blow something up.

Add to this mix the fact that the Cylons have a plan - it has, obviously, not yet been revealed, but it includes at least some element of breeding with humans; one of the duplicates is pregnant by a human, and the season one finale indicated that she's not the only one. Add also the fact that the fleet is governed by two very different leaders - the military commander, Adama, (played excellently by Edward James Olmos,) who heads all the remaining military forces in the fleet, and the civilian president, Laura Roslin, (played just as well by Mary McDonnell,) who leads the civilian refugees.

Add in a traitor no-one suspects, because his Cylon accomplices accused him of treason openly, and provided evidence that was found to be fake - along with revealing a Cylon fifth columnist, all of which places Dr. Gaius Baltar (played with wonderful creepy twitchiness by James Callis) in a position of basically unassailable trustworthiness.

Add in a duplicate who is basically one of the most popular pilots on Galactica - Lt. Sharon "Boomer" Valeri, played by Grace Park: Boomer has been terrified that she might be a Cylon and not know it throughout Season One, while unbeknownst to her, a duplicate of herself is on a planet far behind the fleet, pregnant by a human; in the Season One finale, she runs face to face into a horde of (maybe 2 or 3 hundred) duplicates of herself, and responds by returning to Galactica and shooting Commander Adama in the chest twice.

Add in the fact that the Commander and President have very different views on what the humans' plan ought to be; the Commander is trying desperately to preserve the fleet, while the President, dying of terminal cancer and hallucinating from the treatment drugs, is convinced she's having prophetic dreams. Currently, Adama is down for the count; the word from the producers is that he will definitely survive into Season Two, but will be "a changed man." The President is in jail, having been arrested for inciting what Adama called a mutiny.

Add in the, according to the producers, EIGHT as yet unmasked Cylon duplicates aboard the Galactica itself, not even counting the ones in the rest of the fleet.

And top off this mess with the enigmatic plans and scheming of Number Six, who is the closest thing the Cylons have revealed to a leader, and what you have is a show of consistent maneuvering, drama, intrigue, and paranoia; a show in which even characters you have followed and grown to like can turn out to be deadly enemies, and even the main characters are not safe from death (this, also, straight from the producers; they said outright "you should not be comfortable watching Galactica.")
In my book, and apparently in that of a lot of other people, this is the best show on television - or at least damn close.


Take my word for it. Watch this show. You will not regret it.


*(A little note: the quotes and information from the producers are taken from the interview in this week's TV Guide magazine; it's one issue actually worth picking up, because there's a lot more information about the show in there.)

Wes Craven, You've Been Cursed!

At IMDB.com!

A werewolf loose in Los Angeles changes the lives of three young adults, who, after being mauled by the beast, learn they must kill their attacker if they hope to change their fate.

Well, that's sorta true.
Kinda.
Not really.
More like TWO young people are mauled and cursed. One is just plain killed.

Ok.
First things first.
Wes Craven has a well-deserved reputation for making horror films.
He's made such gems as The Last House On The Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Serpent And The Rainbow, Shocker, and Scream.

Sadly, he's decided to rest on his laurels.
Cursed has no horror at all, and is the epitome of what Hollywood has been doing to one of the all-time great movie monsters recently: the "funny" werewolf movie.

I'm not sure I understand this phenomenon. For me, it's a complete waste of a perfectly good movie monster. Werewolves are supposed to eat your ass, not give you the finger and gripe about fat thighs. Werewolves are supposed to be dark and evil, not skinny social climbers. But most importantly, werewolves are supposed to be SCARY.

This movie isn't. It has one clever bit of subversiveness in it, which I will explain in a bit, and one good scene in which one of the characters' dog, who has gotten infected with the werewolf whatevers, becomes a really angry mutant dog and tries to chew his face off for no reason. Not really true to the werewolf mythos, but hey, who's picky.

Certainly not theater audiences these days. I mean...

...Oh, wait, movie revenues are way down at the theater, aren't they? Maybe I'm needlessly badmouthing theater audiences.
Well, we'll see.

The movie is a relentless advertisement for the Craig Kilborn show. The main character works for the show, and is trying to find guests. In a clever bit of subversiveness, the movie tries to sell Scott Baio as the bad guy, but he doesn't even make a very good red herring. All in all, he has about 6 lines in the whole movie, which begs the question "Does Scott Baio still have a career?"

Clearly, no. "Please, please, SOMEONE, pay me! I'm broke and have no job skills!"

Apparently, neither does the screenwriter. Wes Craven's reputation, for me, was severely damaged by this show, and my willingness to buy a ticket to another movie because it's "a film by Wes Craven" is going to be very, very limited.
VERY limited.
Try none.

This movie was a huge, smelly waste of $80 million or so. All that money ought instead to have been put to better use - say, making a HORROR MOVIE about werewolves. The world didn't need another teen comedy with that happens to feature werewolves.

Let me just spell it out for you.

In high school wrestling, if you perform a WWE-style delayed vertical suplex on your opponent, any wrestling coach in the country would absolutely have you up on charges; in Cursed, the coach just winces, as though to say "wow, that musta HURT."

In ANY WORLD, if you have a bully who is secretly gay, and you call him on it in front of all his friends and in public, the last thing in the world he will do is come to your house later that night to announce that you were right about him and he WANTS you - except in Hollywoodland.

Werewolves die from silver bullets, not from being shot in the head with normal bullets. Don't you guys watch movies, fa Chrissakes?!?

In closing, let me just say that if I had directed this ungodly mess, it would have been an Alan Smithee film; I wouldn't have wanted my name attached to it in any way, much less with top billing. I feel for Christina Ricci, who hasn't yet gotten the notoriety she deserves and the concomitant ability to pick which scripts she will work on; she shouldn't be saddled with trash like this.

This movie is a definite buy for me - yes, a BUY - in fact, I want ALL the copies, so I can burn them on the front lawn of Miramax.

Never buy this DVD, unless you're planning on sending me the DVD for safe, legal disposal.

Nuggets Of Crunchy Goodness

Intel can't just ADVERTISE, no...

The JFTC Recommendation concluded that Intel K.K. interfered with AMD Japan's business activities by providing large amounts of funds to five Japanese PC manufacturers (NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Sony, and Hitachi) on the condition that they refuse to purchase AMD processors. As a result of these illegal acts, AMD Japan suffered serious damages, losing all of its sales to Toshiba, Sony, and Hitachi, while sales to NEC and Fujitsu also fell precipitously.

That's right, Intel is so scared of AMD's Opteron processors that they actually paid other companies not to buy them. NICE job, AMD!!


Falling under the heading "Why Not To Hack The Cops," an Indonesian "pirate" website was shut down by police, after the owner discovered that the police were monitoring the activity on his website and hacked the observing computer, destroying it with a virus. Way To Go, Hartoyo Lupis and TokoDVD.com!

Falling under "Well, Duh!" is the knowledge that gamers have better target-acquisition skills than the rest of us. No kidding. This is probably why the U. S. Army is using games as a recruiting tool these days. Way To Go, Gamers!

Time Magazine has decided that they don't need confidential informants anymore; we know this because they're spilling the names of the informants who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to a Washington special prosecutor. Nice going; I'm sure people will just LEAP forward to give you reporters information now; it was hard enough to get people to give you accurate information when they thought their identities were safe! Way To Go, TIME Magazine!

In the "Hideous, Reeking Irony," category, one of the DSW customers whose credit card information was stolen in their recent security debacle was Federal Trade Commission head Deborah Platt Majoras. I can't really give anyone a "Way To Go!" here, just laugh. Loudly, long, and offensively. Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaa.... *wipes away a tear* heeeeeee.....

Again, "Well, Duh!" A 16-year-old boy who was coerced by two female teachers into having a threesome with them is declining to press criminal charges. What a surprise!

Good news! If you're 14, and you want to get someone registered as a sex offender, all you have to do is run out in front of their car!
Really!
No, I mean it, it's all true!
A 14-year-old girl ran out into the road in front of Fitzroy Barnaby's car in Des Plaines, Illinois. He yelled at her to stay out of the road and gave her a lecture about child safety, during which he held her arm. Now, because of his "unlawful restraint of a minor," he is required to register as a sex offender, wherever he goes. The insanity of this boggles the mind. The judge who rendered the decision said that "he might have only intended to chastise the child, but I can't read his mind."
Which, of course, ALSO means you can't tell if he wanted to do something else, either. Innocent until proven guilty having gone by the wayside, Barnaby is now a registered sex offender because he tried to keep someone's child from getting killed in traffic. WAY TO GO PARENTS, YOU STUPID, STUPID FUCKS!
(If your parental monitoring software is pinging, too bad. If you're not adult enough to realize that that particular phrase applies perfectly to the idiot parents in question, then fuck you and the horse you rode in on, too.)

Sandra Day O'Connor (warning: slow, ghetto .PDF file) is finally retiring from the Supreme Court, just days after having been the crucial swing vote in the case which allows the government to steal your house and give you the finger.
Thanks a bunch. At least this gives Bush his first Supreme Court justice, and at least she couldn't hang on long enough to get another liberal moron.

Oh, and last but not least: we're raising a generation of punks and wimps. Of course, I've been saying this for years, but then I've seen the elephant. I pretty much think anybody who hasn't is a wimp.

Fortunately, video games will save us. Playstation makes better soldiers, remember?