chadius

04:47 pm: Pigs flew. RIAA thinks DRM is dead.
RIAA thinks DRM is dead.

Whaaaaat? Well, I'm glad it only took them 20 years to realize it but...

02:18 pm: Internet Herding Award goes to..."Live Music"
"Live Music" is a five minute animated film, using animators from around the world to submit shots, and facebook users voting on what shots are included in the final film. They managed to basically apply Wikipedia to films. CRAZY. Sony will be publishing this film as part of its "Planet 51" animated...thing.

This is one of the few times someone has utilized the internet to make something big. I wonder how far collaborative works can go. Also I'm interested in fan-driven material.

(New York Times, July 16th)

Tags: collaborative works, internet

02:14 pm: That Obama Hope picture. Who owns it?
1) Shepard Fairey, the person who modified a photograph into the picture?
2) The Associated Press who hired the freelance photographer to take the photograph?
They've been in a court case for a few months, with AP claiming Fairey misappropriated it, and Fairey claiming Fair Use.

Or

3) Mannie Garcia, the freelance photographer who took the picture while working for AP for 5 weeks?
He claims that he never transferred his ownership rights to AP, therefore he still owns the picture and should get the cred for it. He joined the fracas today according to the New York Times.

Man, what a tangled web.
-Chad

Tags: associated press, copyright, obama

09:50 pm: Maybe the best Transformers 2 review I've seen so far
Remember kids, you can pull excessive meaning out of ANY film if you look hard enough.

Swirly art movie of doom. Some spoilers, although this movie's purpose isn't plot.

Tags: contemplate our navels, transformers

01:29 pm: New York Times, July 9 2009
So much stuff to read about today.

1) Massachusetts becomes the first state to challenge the Defense of Marriage act by suing the federal government over its prevention of giving benefits to same sex couples. w00t.

2) Google announces its Chrome-based OS, which will basically load stuff from the web. They are planning to deploy the linux-based OS on netbooks, which don't have the hard drive space or processing power to deal with Windows-style application install/update juggling. Keep your breath held, kids to see which side breaks first.

3) There's a trend of clean-shaven men on the rise. Similar to how 1920s ads and movies portrayed hairy women's armpits and legs as ugly, there are new ad campaigns showing men how to shave themselves clean and this will totally turn on the ladies. That's what they say, anyway. Some people counter that hair is manly, and no hair means you're a big 12 year old. NSFW Confession: My naked penis scares me, it needs a shrub hedge.

4) Interesting statistical number fudge: The Nintendo DS is outselling the Sony PSP by 100 percent. Stated on page B5. This is actually true, but it sounds a lot worse than 68% vs 32%.

5) EPIC EYEBROW ALERT: Hayao Miyazaki will make a rare appearance in the US for the 40th Annual Comic Con. The next day he will go to University of California, Berkeley to accept the Japan Prize. Also, his new movie "Ponyo" is coming out on July 27th. He'll be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the day after.

Damn, those eyebrows are killer. I want those so bad.



Tags: google, miyazaki, new york times, psp

04:24 pm: China cancels Internet Censorship Tool
w00t w00t.

China has indefinitely delayed their Green Dam software mandate. Up until yesterday, any (Windows) computers sold after July 1st were required to have a government-issued internet censorship software on them. Luckily international pressure forced them to back off.

They claimed this was to protect the children from porn (THINK OF TEH CHILDREN!) but people noticed all of the political stuff they were also blocking (big surprise there.) Computer manufacturers were worried about the security risks it presented (Remember Sony's Rootkit nonsense?) as well as stability (they had about 3 months to test for any errors an unknown and unspecified program would have on an OS.) Several nations also noted the obvious restriction on free speech (The US said the program violated free trade agreements.) So yeah, it was epic fail all the way.

Note how most computer manufacturers didn't make a move to recall already sold inventory, or to actually make prepared computers. I guess everyone was just waiting for the cancellation. lol.

Tags: china, green dam, internet

01:20 pm: Truck vendor warz
New York Times, July 1st (It's July? Couldn't tell by the weather) talks a bit about the food cart battles in NYC. In a nut shell, the economy has created a lot of food vendors. New York City sells permits but not parking spaces, so everyone is basically on their own.

Different viewpoints Like one new vendor said, it's like the school yard all over again. You gotta remember which spots you can sit nearby without the bullies beating you up. The old timers see fancy flashy new guys moving in on their home territory, akin to someone squatting your farm in the Wild Wild West.

NYC's bureacracy (I love how this word = evil nowadays) is too slow and doesn't really enforce permit checks, so there is little legal way to keep this in check. Still if you're looking for vegan tacos, more choice is better.

Tags: food carts

09:22 am: Culture shock: Water laws
You can now catch water freely in the State of Colorado.

I had absolutely no idea rain catching was serious business. Who owns the sky, anyway?

Tags: culture shock, rain catching

10:46 am: Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship
New York Times, June 22 2009 has an article describing the problems with governments banning political websites. Ethan Zuckerman calls it the "Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship." To ban one website, governments often go overkill and ban unrelated websites as the filters aren't good enough and generate tons of false positives. People who don't care about political stuff get pissed and wind up supporting it when they can't see pictures of kittens tucked inside bowls.

Many people have learned about proxies and other workarounds because their favorite site was banned. People mix political messages into an otherwise innocent blog so governments would have to ban all of Twitter or ban nothing.

So Iran and China are klobbing headlong into this. Iran is busy booting all traditional reporters or telling them not to report on political unrest but has had little effort against the massive blogging community. China is forcing filter software onto all new computers after July 1st. Beta users are already complaining that they can't see pictures of pigs anymore (probably akin to looking for pussy cats) and people are worried China will extend the filter to political groups they don't like.

Hang in there, kitty.




Tags: blog, cat, censorship

03:14 pm: Same-sex couples recognized in the '10 census
I found plenty of stuff to get angry about when I read the New York Times this Sunday. But this wasn't one of them.

Tucked into the corner of page A20, was a blurb over the inclusion of Same Sex Marriage recognition. w00t w00t.

08:51 pm: New York part 3: My cousin.
My cousin, now a tween, asks me if he can play City of Heroes on my account. I'm OK with that. He builds a Scrapper, street sweeps for a bit, then jumps to the tops of buildings and leaps off to see how well he can survive the fall. He doesn't learn new attacks, and he doesn't buy any enhancements, so he's running around at level 6 with a basic attack and basic defense. But he's having fun. And that's what counts, right?

He also didn't realize what the "Self-Destruct" attack did. His friends were laughing at him once his toon exploded. Ah, the joys of big red buttons.

I had to stare at this handicapped parking symbol a few times before I identified what was wrong with it. Maybe it's Charles Xavier's parking space.




Tags: city of heroes, cousin, handicapped fail, new york

04:32 pm: New York, part 2: Underground stores, whee.
For mysterious reasons I am obsessed with finding a particular apple corer for my friend. It looks like Bed Bath and Beyond has it. And hey, I'm in New York, it must be for sale. So it was time for an awesome trip downtown via the subway.

MTA's website has a route locator, which is good as they got rid of paper maps. It is also good that I found a BBB that requires me to stay on a single train, the 2, for about an hour so I don't have to deal with transfers.

So I got to the BBB and noticed it was kind of small. Was this a ministore? When I entered I learned the hilarious truth: It's underground. There are two more levels, each as wide as the block the tiny top level sits on. Crazy.

Even crazier: There are elevators, and then there are escalators. AND THEN there are cart escalator. You push the cart onto its own special escalator and ride up alongside it. Damn I feel like a tourist here.

Anyway, the store didn't have it in stock (WUT?) so I left empty-handed. On the plus side, this isn't the apple corer my friend wanted anyway.



Tags: bed bath & beyond, new york, underground

10:20 pm: New York shizzles part 1: The party
Dad's 60th birthday party was on Thursday, but we celebrated on Saturday. He had a great time; Mom and I spent most of Sunday cleaning up. Ugh.

Here's the brick grill dad made about 15 years ago. He thought about tearing it down a few years back, but the family would hear none of that. Good times. Some of the family members didn't cook like they promised to :( so we spent most of the party cooking. Luckily several other members joined in so we got a chance to enjoy ourselves.

The skies grew very cloudy and threatened to rain. So we built an impromptu tarp. Dad grabbed a few planks of wood and we tied everything up.

I wound up babysitting the kids so I couldn't go to sleep until they did. At 3:30 AM they finally burned out and I was granted peace. Good thing I kept an eye on them though, things got kind of rowdy. You might notice the sink isn't where it should be.

The important thing is, Dad had a great time.




Tags: dad's birthday, family, grill, new york

09:46 pm: Castlevania 2: Simon's Curse
Finally get to see the source of "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE."

Also, I'm enjoying how this game tells you basically nothing about the world, or how you're supposed to find anything.

Tags: castlevania

09:40 pm: Oh hey Futurama.
According to the New York Times, Comedy Central has signed up for 26 episodes of Futurama, uncancelling it. W00t w00t. Time for me to buy the 4 movies once I get some cash.

Tags: futurama

01:12 pm: YouTube, what happened?
Looks like YouTube's uploader is broken if you run Firefox on Linux. Great.

*pats WiiFit videos on the head lovingly*

05:19 pm: Whee, Truman Show
I forgot how much I loved this film.

Quick summary: Jim Carrey is in the ultimate reality TV show- he's been on TV since birth, everyone he knows is an actor, he's on an artificial island and he's starting to realize things aren't right.

Squee. I think I found a theme I like: breaking out of a role you've been forced into. The Incredibles springs to mind as a similarly-themed movie where the Parr family realizes they aren't cut to be civilians - they NEED to be Super.

Tags: breaking out, the incredibles, the truman show

05:28 pm: Boot legg'd
The second half of my Astro Boy 2003 DVDs are in severe disrepair. Sounds like I'll have to deal with the English dub.

Yeah, I finally found a series where I simply dislike the English dub. Drives me nuts, since I can't find a japanese DVD anywhere.

08:22 pm: Sad is mellow. Story cooldown.
I just finished Super Mario RPG again. I forgot how much Geno's leaving the party impacts me.

Geno comes from "up there" and is here to help you find the seven MacGuffins and defeat the villainous Smithy Gang. Right before you fight Smithy, Geno hints something will happen to him once you beat Smithy. After you elstomp Smithy you get the last MacGuffin. Before Geno has a chance to speak, he surrounds himself with them, leaves the doll it possesed and leaves to take the MacGuffins back to where they belong.

That's it kids. Geno is nothing but a star now, gazing the heavens and repairing the Star Road.

This makes me so sad.

To make things worse, Geno is the property of SquareSoft and Nintendo. Or can he only appear in Nintendo games? Anyway, this was right before Ninty and Square got into a lovers' quarrel over Cartridge versus CDs and Square left for a little known console called Sony Playstation. Geno was lost in IP MADNESS and I knew I wouldn't see him again.

SUPER SAD. TWIN WATERFALL OF TEARS.

Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga has a Geno cameo. He teaches you how to play a mandatory minigame. The credits show they needed permission from SquareEnix to put him in there, which means it's the last time I'll see him.

So long, G man.

Tags: cherished memories, geno, super mario rpg

11:32 am: Watchmen YouTube vids
You'll only get the joke if you've some exposure to Watchmen (movie/graphic novel.) So SPOILERS.

Watchmen as a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Whoever did this did a great job animating this. Oh, and Canon Defilement ALL OVER THE PLACE. Hey, Rambo did it, the Toxic Avenger did it so why not Watchmen?

ItsJustSomeRandomGuy makes action-figure based clips mocking/lampshading the superhero genre. He makes 3 vids comparing Watchmen to Wolverine: Origins. Catch 'em here.
The Comedian vs Wolverine
Dr. Manhattan vs Wolverine
Rorschach vs Wolverine

Bonus: Long before the movie, an episode of the Simpsons shows "Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation." Milhouse tries to ask Alan Moore which Watchmen baby is his favorite. Moore is understandably upset by this.

...apologies to Alan Moore.

Tags: watchmen, youtube link