So sue me

Slow news day, so I'm leaving you today with a video of a bird stealing Doritos.

http://failblog.org/2010/02/22/shoplifting-win/

Google Streetview

So I figured out yesterday that I can find my house on Google Streetview. I was pretty excited. The house looked pretty good. The grass looked green, and there wasn't any vandalism or anything. I mentioned this to my dad, who told me he "wasn't impressed".

He clarified that he wasn't impressed that now, everybody with access to the Internet will be able to know where our home is, and what it looks like. I wasn't buying it, but he seemed pretty sure of himself.

Now, why is this such an invasion of privacy? I took a deeper look, and found that while Google wasn't breaking any laws, they have been getting a lot of backlash for the Streetview project. This isn't really new to Google, who has done a lot of things that were deemed "questionable" (i.e Google Books, Google Buzz and Gmail in the early days). But while I can understand the controversy of scanning copyrighted books without permission or storing people's private information without their knowledge, I don't see much of a problem with photographing houses. It's not any more an invasion of privacy as letting people walk on sidewalks.

In my opinion, the main opposition here comes from "future shock". It's a term you might have come across before. It's pretty much the feeling you get when you see technological advancements happening faster and faster. You feel lost, and you feel like the world's a worse place off, somehow. And that might be true. For every benefit coming out of a product, there's a downside. While Facebook gives you a chance to reconnect with people you haven't seen for years, it's possible to spend hours waiting for updates from people.

If there is one thing Google wants to accomplish, it's to obtain as much information as possible, and make it easy to access (maybe part of the reason Finland is declaring the internet a legal right). That's what they did with their search engine, their photo service, and their video service, which have pretty much cataloged a good deal of the Internet. That's what they're doing with Google Books, even with the opposition. And that's what they're doing with Streetview.

Streetview can be considered an experiment for now, but there are already some uses to it. Yesterday, I used it to plan an outing into the city, looking for restaurants close to where I was going and looking at landmarks to help me find my way there when I actually was there. You can use it to look at neighborhoods, to see if the place your new apartment is located is actually as good a neighborhood as the landlord claims. One of my favorite uses is to locate landmarks around the world, and get a good look at them, with shots like this:

which makes for a better experience than just through pictures, anyways.

And to those people who might oppose Streetview, let me ask you this: what was the first thing you looked for when you heard about it?

What are your opinions on Streetview? Leave your comments below.

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Twitter

Linky Linky (part deux)

I'm feeling a bit lazy today, so today's gonna be another link day.

For those physics geeks, like me: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/what-is-time/

Now, as a rule, I stay away from card games other than poker and blackjack. But this is a pretty fun game: http://www.kongregate.com/games/zanzarino/elements

Fail: http://failblog.org/2010/02/26/celebration-fail/

And, finally, I recommend you to try out the YouTube HTML5 beta. For those of you who are frustrated with the CPU-sucking Flash, this is a pretty good improvement over YouTube's current player: http://www.youtube.com/html5

That's it for now, I'll see you all tomorrow!

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Twitter

The Verdict is In!

Well, that's about as good an ending as we could have hoped for.

It would seem that iTzLuPo has lost the battle with Microsoft. His Twitter account has been deleted, as I had mentioned yesterday, and he changed his stance completely, posting an apology on his YouTube channel earlier today. Then, in a really unforeseen move, iTzLuPo's channel was deleted. I took a quick glance at Google, and while there are many stories on Lupo, the guy himself can't be found on the Internet.

So, what happened?

I see two possibilities. One, the online community has completely cast out Lupo, making him realize that he was wrong, causing him to make his apology. His accounts were deleted by Twitter and Youtube, and he decided to take his permaban on Xbox Live.

Two (which, to me, seems like what actually happened), his parents wised up. If you weren't aware, somebody on Twitter, @WeKnowWhoYouAre, posted Lupo's full contact information, including his address, his phone number, and even his parent's names (@WeKnowWhoYouAre has been suspended by Twitter for "suspicious activity", likely because of the posting of Lupo's information). With the number of people that are angry at him, some people were bound to call Lupo's home, and his parents were bound to answer. I'm betting that Lupo's parents finally found out about their son's shenanigans on the Internet, and decided to pull the plug.

As for the pro (apparently, there's a space there), I'm told that he is not actually suspended, or even reprimanded. When going over the video, he admits that he was a bit too aggressive in his tone. That about sums it up on the corporate end.

And as for all of us gamers who watched from the sidelines? We just got told by Microsoft that they aren't going to be putting up with hackers, modders, and general cheaters anymore. Which is fine for most of us, since we don't do any of those things (right?). We should be relieved. But I can't help but sense that there might be even more chapters in this story, and we might see a lot more stories in the future like the saga of Lupo and the pro.

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Twitter

You lost your mind boy? ('cause I'll help you find it)

Kudos if you know where the quote is from.

It has recently come to my attention that there is a little spat going on concerning a person known as "itzlupo" and pretty much the rest of the gaming world. If you aren't following this, let me explain.

Sometime this week, itzlupo was playing Modern Warfare on Xbox Live. He allegedly was being harassed by a mod called "thepro", who has a history of being a bit on the brash side when acting out his powers. Now, Lupo has a very large, if not long, history of being a modder when it comes to Xbox, having a large Youtube library full of mods and even evidenced in a personal Tweet sent to Robert Bowling, taunting him about his ability to mod (I can't get the tweet because iTzLuPo's Twitter account has been deleted.) Lupo was subsequently suspended from Xbox Live by thepro.

So, being a banned modder, he did what any banned modder would do: he whined. He made a video to share with other people and worked up quite a following. Thepro's previous history as a hasty banner helped along the modder a lot.

However, thepro's boss, Stephen Toulouse, stuck up for his deputy, and released a fully unedited video showing thepro being heavily provoked by your average preteen gamer.

However, I still have to come up with a conclusion on this. I was dead set that Lupo was guilty, but there are serious inconsistencies on both sides. On the fully unedited video, it can be seen that Lupo was not in fact the one provoking thepro, but a guy named mmmmmhhhhmmmmmPie (I might have mispelled that). This one mistake puts me in doubt.

However, there are a lot more things counting against Lupo. The fact that he edited the video in the first place does not look good for him. Also, even if he wasn't doing anything when the video was being filmed, Lupo might as well be banned from Xbox Live with all the obvious modding that he's doing. Calling attention to himself might not have been in his best interest. Like Tiger Woods before him, Lupo managed to blow this whole thing wide open, and even if the first incident wasn't actually incriminating, all the videos on his channel certainly are, especially now that he's under Microsoft's radar. Another thing that might not look suspicious, but doesn't sit well with me is his denial of anything bad said about him. I suppose that we all feel this, but it still doesn't sit right. Lupo has deleted his Twitter account as I had mentioned earlier, and it appears that every comment directed towards him on YouTube has to get approved, of which he only selects the "Pro Lupo" comments, portraying him in an unnecessarily positive light. Lastly, he seems to be talking too much about suing Microsoft. What would he be suing them for? The $60 for the one year membership they cost him? Any other expenses that he might have were agreed to when he accepted the Terms of Service. If he ever went to court for this, it would never turn out well for him, since Microsoft could easily sue him for their legal costs if they won the case, which would be disastrous for Lupo, who still attends high school.

So, who won here? Nobody! Thepro didn't win, since he is reportedly suspended (though this might be false), and Lupo definitely didn't win, because now he has 90% of the internet against him. If more information comes up tomorrow, I'll be reporting a final verdict.

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Twitter

Stardraft II

As I have mentioned before, I'm still pretty mad at Blizzard, namely because they seemed more concerned about harvesting their quarter of a billion dollars from World of Warcraft. However, I'm willing to forgive them, if they keep to their promise this time and release Starcraft II before July hits. That being said, I'm getting really excited for Starcraft II.

I've never really played much of the RTS genre. I've played Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth a couple of times, but I've never really played that for the last 4 or 5 years. And I've never played Starcraft.

But Blizzard says they're supposed to be gearing the game to all skill levels, which should appeal to everyone. My friends tend to play Starcraft a lot (or they used to, anyway, until they heard Starcraft II was coming soon... back in 2007 *cough* *cough*... OK, I'm officially through with the vaporware talk), so they should be able to find good matches through Blizzard's new match system, and I should be able to find a couple of nubs that are the same level as me that I can beat.

The game should really appeal to really experienced players (You know, Koreans) too, with the new classes that keep people guessing as to exactly how the hell to use them. The only problem I foresee is people who purposely do terrible in the skill level match just to get a bunch of new players as opponents, and win every match. But that would just be boring.

So, Blizzard, I'm taking you off of my Axis of Evil. You'll just sit beside Bungie in the naughty corner.

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Twitter

How mafiaboy didn't teach us anything

Got one more question for everyone, and maybe you can help me with this. Why is it wireless B+G+N? Why did they skip letters, and inconsistently, for that matter? Is it random?

As a follow-up to what happened to be my second blog post, apparently some other people feel the same way about placing rules on the internet.

Now, this is something I feel poses a real threat to us, maybe not now, but in the future. Bear with me for a moment. Imagine that you're twenty years in the future. Your life is full of computers, all communicating with each other. Your lights turn on with your alarm, your fridge is able to tell you what to have for breakfast, your car is able to predict the traffic, the whole works. But there is still no actual security on any of this stuff, other than what Norton or whoever is giving you, which really isn't much. Now, imagine some Chinese, Russian, Korean, or any hacker manages to take down the entire computer network for a city, or even a country. Really, everything would grind to a halt. Some cars might crash. Nothing really drastic would happen, except 99% of people would probably have nothing to do until the computers come back up. But who knows how long that would take, if nobody has been taking measures to keep this from happening?

Sound far-fetched? So did taking down Yahoo.com, back in 1999. But then a 15-year-old kid named Michael Calce AKA mafiaboy did it. Yahoo didn't know what to do with it. Neither did Amazon, Dell, Ebay, or CNN. That 15-year-old kid reportedly did over $1 billion worth of damage.

That's pretty much why I feel that the government, the science community, someone should be doing something about the paltry security we have right now on the internet.

But, unfortunately, I don't decide anything.

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Twitter

Questions that make you go "Huh?"

Have you ever played Antbuster? The plot is nonsense. The humans who left the cake out there never once tried to get the cake in the half hour I played it for. Why am I trying to protect a cake that nobody wants?

If the update to this "Facebook Gold" thing is actually free, why don't they just offer it to everybody?

How can Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers? If they were pickled, wouldn't they already need to be picked?

Why is it that the only place north of Florida that doesn't have snow is the one holding the Winter Olympics?

Why was the movie called "Mission: Impossible" if Tom Cruise actually accomplished the mission?

What's the deal with Justin Bieber being a trending topic on Twitter? Isn't it because people are just Tweeting about how they hate him?

Why is it that the main demographic that the Jonas brothers appeal to are under 13? Seems a bit weird...

And finally, why is it that so many people are dramatic on Facebook, but hate people that are dramatic on Facebook?

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Twitter

Canadian

I have a confession to make, everybody. I'm... yes, I'm saying it... I'm... Canadian *gasps*.

Now, as a part of my "Canadians Anonymous" program, I am required to write one satirical piece on Canada and share it with as many people as I can. So, here goes:

Some guy named Pierre once said, “Canada is a country built against any common, geographic, historic or cultural sense.” I thought long and hard about these words, and I believe this guy was wrong. There’s some geographic sense in there. But after my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that the rest doesn’t make any sense.

You know who the top dog is in Canada? The Big boss, the head honcho? It’s the f-ing QUEEN OF ENGLAND. Now, this definitely came as a surprise to me. I went 14 years of my life not knowing that our every political move is really controlled by England. What is Canada, a momma’s boy? After my research, I came to the conclusion that, well, yeah, Canada is a momma’s boy.

Let’s say that the US, Canada, England, France, and Spain are all in a family. Now, France is the father of Canada, Spain is the Father of the US (Yes people, you purchased Louisiana, remember!), and England is the skanky whore that is the mother of both Canada and the US. Now, England, France, and Spain are really distant from their kids. The US decides to go live off on his own. England goes over there, and the US tells her to f off. Then, after he’s become big and successful, he gets property from Spain, his father, by buying him out. Now that the US has split, England gets pretty possessive of Canada, and decides that she wants full control of him. So, she smacks France around, France smacks her back, and eventually, England gets custody of Canada. Later on, Canada decides it’s time for him to get out on his own. So, he tells England that he wants to live in his own house, and buy his own food, but England can still have some control. So, papers get signed, and Canada leaves home. Yes, that’s right. Canada wasn’t formed by some war or resistance movement. Canada was formed by signing a piece of paper that the Queen endorsed. Sounds lame, huh? Well, you’re right. It is lame.

So, fast forward a hundred years, and you get Canada as it is today, and it decided to have a big party. You have Chinese-Canadians, Ukrainian-Canadians, African-Canadians, Japanese-Canadians, and Indian-Canadians, not to be confused with Native Canadians. I myself am an Irish-Ukrainian-Canadian. You can get this all the time, which leads to Russian-Ukrainian-Canadians, African-American-Canadians, and Banana-ana-fo-Canadians. You know what you don’t get? CANADIAN-CANADIANS. Everyone is an immigrant, except the Natives, but even then, they’re just Natives. Not even a hyphen in there. Pretty biased, don’t you think?

Well now, you’d think that with all these different cultures living in Canada, that we would have started some religious civil war by now, right? But then you look back at the only 4 major events in Canadian history and find that we’ve never had a civil war. Well, you think, the Canadians must have covered it up. They had to have had a civil war by now, right? No, because we Canadians have found the solution to global peace. Can you guess what it is? Shopping malls. You see, shopping malls contain all types of distractions. You’ve got restaurants, large department stores, and 25 cent kiddie rides. If you take a look back, every country that has had a civil war has had a distinct lack of shopping malls.

Now, I’ve prepared a mathematical equation here. The probability, P, of a country ever being embroiled in civil war is related to the number of shopping malls it has, or n, by the equation P equals 80 minus I divided by 650 squared percent. Now, as you can see, this shows that a country will need to have 5850 shopping malls before it can be safe from civil war, a statistic which Canada reached hundreds of years ago. In fact, to be able to qualify for a township in Canada, you have to have at least one strip mall, and to be a city, you have to have at the very least 4 full-sized shopping malls. To be a fully recognized citizen of Canada, you have to take an oath, kill a beaver, and be able to walk through a shopping mall without buying anything.

And that “killing a beaver” deal is an actual fact. We are one of the only, maybe the only country in the world that actually attempts to exterminate its national animal. It’s really because we were late to the party. In the USA, they got the bald eagle. The United Kingdom has a lion. Bangladesh has tigers, and we were even a country before them. Even Poland has a good animal, and we know how good THEY are at making decisions. Since every other animal in our country was covered (except for the deer, but seriously, we weren't gonna pick an animal whose one main predator is SUVs driving on the highway), we were stuck with the animal who happens to be a pest in Canada. Not a problem anywhere else, but in Canada, oh boy. There's even "beaver bounties" that are offered to people willing to hunt the creatures down, so they'll stop building their damn dams (ba-da-psh!).

Oh, it’s time for the mandatory dispelling of all stereotypes. No, we don’t use dogsleds, just in the summer. No, we didn’t just come out of the ice age last year. No, we don’t live in igloos, just people outside of Toronto. Yes, we do have FM radio. And finally, yes, we are the best at hockey. If you don't believe me, ask any Canadian hockey fan.

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Twitter

Supercar!

As gas prices go up for the summer driving season, you must be feeling the increasing emptiness in your wallet, and regretting your decision to buy that extra low mileage Hummer with heated bucket seats and a refrigerator under each of the back seats and a speech recognition media system and a TV for every seat in the vehicle and automatic adjusting seats and a HAL 3000 and a steam engine that burns money.

California Poly thinks they have a solution to that with their improved version of their original high-mileage car, the Black Widow. The three-wheeled, 3 horsepower car travels up to 35 miles and gets an amazing 2750 miles per gallon. That's enough to get you from Seattle to Atlanta on one gallon of gas - with about 50 miles to spare!

Image courtesy Cal Poly Supermileage Team

Another story I found today which, coincidentally, is also about cars, is about the Intelligent Transportation System, or ITS. Now that we have smartphones with the technology to view real-time traffic from our cars over a 3G network, the general science population is researching effective ways to make those gadgets communicate with each other, giving even more accurate data on traffic and other cars.

This is what has me excited today. Soon, we will have cars that can go across the US five to ten times on one tank of gas, and is able to communicate with each other, and with us. You know what that means. Soon, we will have this:

I fully expect that we all will be driving KITTs in 10 to 20 years. On another note, any idea how to stop my car from killing me when it finally becomes intelligent to realize I'm not a good driver?

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Twitter

Yay!

So, it's my birthday today, and I'm still taking a bit of time off. I'm gonna just post some links from stuff I found interesting today.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/getconference/<- not so much the meeting, but the other stuff.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/02/activision-harmonix/ <- I'm a diehard Rock Band fan, and I just don't like what Activision did with Guitar Hero.

http://www.youtube.com/user/misterdeity <- something I just found, it's pretty good if you don't mind religious humor.

Also, I'm gonna give a plug for a forum group on Bungie.net, called ODST Recon: http://www.bungie.net/fanclub/81323/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=87280. This is a really good group, and it needs some new blood to whip into shape.

By the way... the US banned alcohol for 15 years? What's up with that?

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Twitter

Vijima g4M3z

It just so happens that it's my birthday tomorrow :D ! Because of this (and because I'm naturally lazy), today's gonna be a link day.

I've been playing a bunch of flash games lately (I honestly hate Flash, but there's not many browser games that aren't flash). One game that got me hooked for 5 hours - a long time, I know - is Infectionator: World Dominator. It has a great concept, a lot of challenges, and apparently a zombie Colonel Sanders that s**ts zombie chickens (O.e).

Another game I really like is called MegaDrill. Another upgrade concept, this applies some mechanics of Hedgehog Launch, except downward.

A game that I haven't gotten around to yet, but I'm really excited to play, is Factory Balls 3. The puzzles in the first two Factory Balls games were fairly challenging without being Silver-Surfer-esque.

If you don't get that Silver Surfer reference, I want to recommend another Youtube series with you, called the Angry Video Game Nerd. It's a review of terrible games, and gives a lot of comedic material to any gamer.

That's all for now, folks! Don't forget to follow me on Twitter!

Now in Theatres: 2010 in 3-D

According to IMDb, everybody and their dog has seen Avatar. Now, there are many theories as to why this is, such as the fantastic storyline, the CGI, and the success of James Cameron (who is gonna make a sequel to Avatar, produced by James Cameron, based on the book by James Cameron, directed by James Cameron, and starring James Cameron as James Cameron).

Now, while these are all legitimate reasons, and the film wouldn't be nearly as successful without any of these factors, they are definitely not the top of the list. No, the offering of Avatar in 3-D was the gimmick that sold the show.

And not just because of the more expensive tickets for 3-D, either. Let me take you back to 1970. Well, maybe 2003.

I was a lot younger then, and when the third Spy Kids film came out, I went to see it opening day. I mean, come on, a Spy Kids movie ABOUT VIDEO GAMES AND IN 3-D (!!!1!!one1!). I never really remembered much of the movie, but I chanced upon it while flipping the channels one night and decided to watch. The movie itself wasn't good and wasn't completely terrible, but it seemed really gimmicky. It seemed that every other second, there was a spring-loaded fist, a coin, or another video game item coming too close to the camera for comfort.

Now, Avatar completes what other filmmakers have been trying to do with 3-D, and does away with the gimmicks. Avatar finally made 3-D movies an art form, rather than an unnecessary gimmick as bad as sticking Mickey Mouse ears on everything at Disneyland.

In conclusion, I believe that Avatar will finally prove the viability of 3-D movies, and even though they won't take over from regular old movies (some people will become sick from it, and I honestly feel uncomfortable wearing two pairs of glasses at once), they'll definitely be an option for more and more movies. Also, Spy Kids sucked. Hard.

P.S. As a follow-up on my Google Supranet post on Saturday, the FCC is proposing higher broadband speeds.

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Twitter

Twitter, please fix your s**t

Twitter, please fix your s**t.

I assume that you aren't under yet another hacker attack, but even then, you need to start thinking about some upgrades to your network. I really dislike seeing this when I go onto Twitter:

(Image brought to you by the Fail Whale)

Because it usually means that you haven't bothered to upgrade your servers. If you want to have a future as what you are now, I would put some serious thought into upgrading your server, security, whatever you need to so that people stop seeing the Fail Whale when they go onto Twitter.

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My Twitter (assuming that you can get on there now)

Fake global warming may be good

Ah, the Monday of a long weekend. I love long weekends, especially when there's nothing to do. Gives me a chance to catch up on sleep and just relax. Plus, it's starting to warm up again, and I can wear shorts outside now!

On the topic of warming up, I read an article yesterday that said that global warming might not actually be happening, but is a cause of different factors, such as a normal warming phase, displacement of instruments, and the surroundings of weather instruments. If this is true, a lot of us (except for you Hummer-drivers) might really look like idiots, huh?

Not necessarily. Even though some of us - and a lot of the environmentalists - were running around like chickens with our head cut off, that doesn't necessarily make us idiots. Let me compare this to the swine flu scare. When swine flu broke out last April, the first thing I thought of was Pandemic. Pandemic is a Flash game where you take control of a virus, and use strategy to evolve and take out the world. It seems that many people were thinking along the same lines, because after that, every precaution was taken to ensure that swine flu didn't spread. As of the start of this month, less than 20,000 people had actually died because of swine flu. However, stores and public places still place hand sanitizer everywhere, and people are still more careful about personal hygiene. It would seem that swine flu, although far from the epidemic it was supposed to be, actually benefited the world.

Compare that to global warming. We have another problem here, though people seem less worried about it. This is probably because no human has died from global warming. Anyway, there are many people saying that we need to solve this problem right away, and it is generally accepted that global warming is a threat to our planet. If global warming is proven to be exaggerated, like swine flu, the habits would still be in place. Since oil is running out, we would still try for alternative fuels and electric cars. We would still conserve water and electricity, and try to recycle more and throw out less.

Do you think global warming is real? How much of a threat do you think it is?

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Twitter

Dammit, Bungie! (and other frustrations)

Bungie just released their first ViDoc previewing Halo Reach. Against my will, I'm impressed. The graphics seem awesome. The story looks capable. The gameplay looks different, if not improved, so it doesn't look like a generic Halo 3 clone (*cough* ODST *cough*). It looks like it's gonna be a good game. So, what's the catch, Bungie? Are we gonna see the Master Chief's face? Are you gonna do a George Lucas and throw as many characters in as possible in a prequel? You better get it right this time, that's all I'm saying.

I'm really getting sick of the weather right now. The one place north of Florida that doesn't have snow is the place holding the Winter Olympics. Get it right, Mother Nature.

My graphics card also crapped out on me today. For some reason, it thinks displaying menu options constantly is a good thing. I'm getting pretty close to just replacing the thing. Stupid Intel.

Another thing I'm frustrated about is Blizzard. Stop milking your cash cow (A.K.A WoW) and get on Starcraft II already!

Anything any of you would like to rant about? Leave your rants in the comments below.

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Google Supranet?

I read today that Google plans on becoming an making their own ISP service. I, for one, applaud Google's initiative, all other aspects aside. However, I have some concerns.

Google's initiative comes at a great time, when all the current ISP's are stagnating. One of the problems with the Western World (Out of three main ones) is that it is too money-centric (huh. Apparently, my spell check says that's a word). It's because of this, plus the two other reasons I'll tell you about another time, that many corporations and governments think in terms of "good enough". There hasn't been a major speed upgrade in a while. The ISP's want to sit back and watch the money roll in, with the occasional break for "fixing" everybody's connection. Google has done many amazing thing in the 12 or so years they've been active (finally, a good tech company younger than me), and I think that if they put their minds to it, they should be able to do a better job than what the current ISP's do now.

But (yes there's a 'but'), Google seems to be doing more than they can handle here. They have a zillion projects on the go (Google Chrome, Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Chrome OS, Google Streetview, Google Earth, Google Books, the whole China thing, and not to mention keeping their regular site up), and they seem to be stretching themselves even further with each new project.

I seem to be contradicting myself here. I want change as fast as possible, but I don't want Google to change too fast. It's a case of status quo vs. change. I think that a 1G-bps connection would be a great thing for the world. However, I don't want to see Google go under doing it.

Overall, I think Google is doing the right thing. They are possibly the most "pro-change" company out there, and I always get excited at news that Google is planning something big. I really do hope they succeed in this initiative.

I want to hear your suggestions. Have your say in the comment board. Do you think Google is making the right move, or do you think you have a better solution?

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

A note to all space powers

Ah, Saturday. Finally. Plus, it's the long weekend. Time to party!

I wanted to finally address the cancellation of Project Constellation. First off, I want to say that I understand that the project is not financially viable, and so there is going to have to be some cheaper alternative. Second of all, what the hell?

It never mattered 40-50 years ago if a space project wasn't financially viable. They damn well went and did it. We have been able to land people on the moon for the last 40 years, and if the government wasn't so damn concerned about money, they would have gone through with the project. Since when did the government care about saving money (*cough* Iraq *cough*)? What changed since Neil Armstrong hit the big one in '69?

Georgia happened. Kazakhstan happened. Russia happened. Now that the U.S.S.R is gone, there isn't anybody to try and tell the United States "hey, you aren't that great at this science stuff". So the government sits comfortably, thinking that the U.S will always reign supreme in innovations, even if they don't do a damn thing about it.

But if there is one characteristic that defines the U.S, it's competition. If any other country were to rise up and challenge the country in anything, the U.S will try to protect its reputation by any means possible.

So, keep it up, China and Russia. Because without you, those bozos up in Washington will never try to keep up the progress we've been hoping for so much.

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Olympics

So, it's Olympics time again. It still doesn't seem like that long ago that the Beijing Olympics were being held. And it looks like they brought a metric s**tton of problems over to the Vancouver Olympics. First, I'll get the obvious one out of the way. The Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, died today in a luging accident. Now, I have full respect for the dead. and I think Nodar deserves recognition, but it seems a bit far to call an athlete that many people had never heard of two days ago a "hero". Just saying. Second, I would like to get across that I never liked luge that much. Seemed pretty dangerous to me.

On a lighter note, doesn't it seem ironic that the city hosting the Winter Olympics is the only place north of Florida without any snow right now?

I'm gonna be getting to that make-up post tomorrow. I've been procrastinating too much lately, and I need to get back into the habit of writing posts after band camp.

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Missing Socks

So, I thought that I would make one nonsense post out of all these catch-up posts. My inspiration from this one came from my last day at band camp. I lost a sock. Now, this wouldn’t be a problem all on its own, but I remember exactly what happened to this sock last night. I kicked it off before going to bed and placed it under the bed. So, what the hell happened to my sock? For that matter, what happened to the other thousands of socks that I’ve lost?

Then it hit me. Narnia.

Yes, I’ve figured it out. All our missing socks have, in fact, found their way to Narnia. How did his happen? I don’t know. I just know that my socks were there one day and gone the next. So, the logical assumption would be that somebody wanted to steal my socks?

But wait, you say. Narnia is filled with harmless wood animals and good-hearted people. Why would they want to steal my socks when they’re obviously so innocent?

Well, it was tough to come up with a motive for this, but then it dawned on me. That goat, or man, or whatever he is, Tumnus, is pretty furry. I suspect Tumnus has a secret sock fetish that he’s been hiding from us all the time:

(This image was drawn in three minutes using Paint on a shaky bus. So sue me.)

So, if you’ve ever been wondering what happens to your socks whenever they go missing, they’ve probably been used by that goat-man in acts too sick to post here.

By the way, you can keep that sock.

TED

So, band camp was a blast. I really should have brought my Rock Band equipment, but we had fun without it *wink* *wink*.

Yeah, that’s some pretty fun Jenga going on right there.

So, I wasn’t able to get a post up Tuesday (or Wednesday), so it seems like I owe you two posts. I'm gonna give you one today, and one tomorrow.

First off, I would like to point you readers to a site I feel is very important, called TED.com. This site is pretty inspiring, and is filled with a bunch of videos on ingenious and informative videos. I advise you check it out.

The people at TED are currently holding their annual conference, so there should be lots of good content up soon: http://www.ted.com/

Yeah, that's it. I'm getting tired, and I have school in the morning.

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Failbook

Well, that didn't work. Only 5 hours of sleep last night, and I'm only running on two cups of coffee right now. It didn't help that I had to stay late at school today, and that I had a chem test. But enough about me.

It looks like Facebook did another "update" on us. I wouldn't know; they haven't gotten around to me yet. But somehow they manage to mess up my Facebook without even trying to. Example:

So it would seem that Facebook can't even get doing nothing right! I really do hope some other guy decides to make a better site, because right now the only reason I'm still on Facebook is because none of my friends have found anything better. What are your thoughts on Facebook, and what would you put in a new social site to replace it? I look forward to reading your comments.

One more thing. For the next two days, I'm gonna be away at Band Camp.

...Well, maybe not that.

But it will mean that I might not be posting for the next two days. I'll try as hard as I can to get one up tomorrow, but it looks like Wednesday will be a no go, unless they got internet there. Since I can't post on Wednesday, there will be two posts on Thursday.

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

My mandatory iPad post - Part 1

Urgh, Sunday. The hardest day to get out of bed. But, I still have to. There's Halo to play. Plus, I have to get out of bed at 5:00 tomorrow, so I might as well be tired tonight so I can get to sleep earlier.

So, Apple announced its new product, the Giant iPod. The iTampon. The other billion names you can call it. Yes, yes, it's a horrible name, I know. But people seem to be split on the product itself. Some people seem to think that it's a horrible product that shouldn't wipe its @$$ on the face of the Earth, or that it will save the publishing industry, the tech industry, the movie industry, and while we're at it, the veterinarian industry (Why not?). I won't succumb to the age-old debate of Mac vs. PC. Nobody wins religious debates (not my joke, sorry).

Instead, I want to give a (relatively) impartial review on the iPad, with pros, cons, and uses (this could be a 4-part or a 5-part review).

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Apple has definitely created a niche for itself in the world of mobile technology. The iPod, the iPhone/iPod Touch (I don't know why people don't usually include them together, they're more alike then the regular iPod and the iPod Touch) and the Macbooks all have their own share of success.

So it seems that Apple has decided to get itself fully into the mobile industry, and with good reason. Most sources agree that most Internet access in ten years will be through mobile devices. However, Apple might not be justified in creating another line of apparently needless gadgets good for apparently nothing else other than the bigger screen. You can't really carry it around conveniently unless you have a bag to carry it in, and trust me, I like not carrying bags around. You don't need it, if you already have a laptop and smartphone, or even one of those.

So, is Apple justified in making another line of mobile devices? I'd like your input on this. Argue among yourselves if you have to. If you think you have to enlighten so-and-so on how they are an idiot, please do so, but in a professional manner, please.

That's all for now. I'll be back tomorrow with part 2!

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Photos courtesy of Apple.com and NYDailyNews.com, respectively.

Linky Linky

I got my Xbox back today!! You know what that means...

Yeah, I'm a nerd.

So, it's Saturday. I don't want to make you think on a Saturday, so I'll just make this a link day.

You already know about the show "Is it a good idea to microwave this?": http://www.youtube.com/user/JPizzle1122

Another channel I like to watch is Wheezy Waiter: http://www.youtube.com/user/wheezywaiter?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti

And 12Medbe, who has tons of clips from "Whose Line is it Anyway?": http://www.youtube.com/user/12medbe?blend=1&ob=4&rclk=cti

Also on my top list is "Least I could Do" and "Looking for Group", run by Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza: http://leasticoulddo.com/ ||| http://www.lfgcomic.com/

And finally, Wired.com, where I go for all my tech news: http://www.wired.com/

That's all for now, folks. I'll see you tomorrow!

An end to internet anonymity

Hi there again. I told you I'm...

Wait. You didn't believe me? You thought I would abandon this blog? Well let me tell you: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

So, content... content... I suppose you want some content...

Well, there's a Youtube show I want to talk about right now, called "Is it a good idea to microwave this?" Often the answer is "no", but that's not what I want to talk to you about. the director, Jonny Paula, has been the victim of false flagging, which has cost him a lot of money, I might say over $1000. The acts are, at the very least, perplexing, since the flaggers don't really gain anything. However, acts like this have convinced me that it's time to end anonymity on the Internet, to discourage fraud and Internet crime. Wikipedia has done this to block and/or ban spam editors (which, trust me, we've all done, right?) over a full IP address. It's time that other popular websites adopt this policy to stop malicious activities like click fraud, flagging fraud, and just take-your-money-run-off-with-it-and-leave-you-one-thousand-dollars-poorer fraud. If anybody ever gets down to reading this, I'd like to hear your say on this matter.

That's all from me. I'll leave you with this video of a guy lapdancing another guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stTt5KznQjw

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Jonny Paula's channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/JPizzle1122

My Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Cdevon2

Hello World

First!

So, hi there. I'm new to the Internet. At least this blogging stuff. I can wiki like no tomorrow, and I constantly have Facebook open. I never even really tried at blogging. But there's one pressing matter that made me turn to blogging right now.

I need money.

I'm going to be heading off for university next year, and I need money to pay for both tuition and residence. So, for a solution to this problem (since I can't seem to find a job - stupid small towns), I need Google to pay me money by selling ads on this page (I need to set this up still).

One thing I have promised to do for this blog is to post daily. I might post useful stuff on here. I might post junk. But I will have at least one post per day on this blog.

So, on that note, I leave you with a picture of a guy dressed in a banana suit.