New Blog

So, I've got a new blog out now, which I'm going to use to replace this blog.  It's called or.ca (maybe when I get some money I can get that actual domain name - it is pretty catchy) and I'm going to be writing on there now, hopefully more often than on the Daily Potpourri.  This blog has a more general scope.  I might be writing about politics, and I might write some stuff that will remind you of this place.  So check it out, and I'll see you all later.

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Tonight, there's gonna be a (legal) jailbreak!

Overheard at a session of Dungeons and Dragons in the past week:
Guy 1: "Ok, can I take the voluptuous tavern maid to bed?"
Guy 2: "Wait, check for traps!"
(Guy 1 rolls a 17 on a trap check)
DM: "You find a chastity belt."
Guy 1: "Dammit!"
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It was announced yesterday that jailbreaking an iPhone is legal under federal copyright law.

And I bet Apple's pretty pissed.

If you aren't familiar with the term, jailbreaking is the act of hacking an iPhone to gain access to apps that aren't approved by Apple, through the underground appstore Cydia.  A similar practice can be used on video game consoles, or the iPhone, to play pirated games

Apple's discouraged the practice ever since someone thought of doing it, since the practice can undermine the closed system that Apple has laid down in the same format since 2007.  Of course, it hasn't been the best system:

Not Invented Here is property of Bill Barnes and Paul Southworth

Of course, if someone were to pirate apps using their jailbroken iPhones, authorities could take action against the perpetrators.  But, the act of jailbreaking is not considered a crime, and neither is the use of Cydia, as long as all developers get credit and/or money for their work.  The system is similar to the system in Canada with respect to BitTorrent: The act of torrenting isn't illegal, since it can be used for freeware.  Pirating is illegal, however.

While Apple can still take action against jailbreakers available to them with their business rights, such as denial of service or refusing warranties, people who jailbreak their iPhones cannot be legally charged.

Of course, Apple doesn't like this one bit.  They think that they're entitled to the regulation of their own system.  However, with all the attention Apple's getting now, you have to wonder how long it might take for them to seriously mess up.

Urghhh

Insomnia sucks.  True story.  Especially when you're looking for a job the next day.

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It's been a week since Apple announced their "fix" for the iPhone 4, in the latest development in what Apple has dubbed "antennagate" - a pretty appropriate name.  The reception for Apple's fix, as with the rest of the debacle, has been generally cool - at best.

Ever since the iPhone 4 came out, there have been complaints about the reception it gets.  Apple claims that only 0.55% of people phoned in complaining about this - some snarky critics shot back that the other 99.45% couldn't get reception.  What really tore it for Apple was when Consumer Reports magazine said that they couldn't recommend the iPhone 4 because of this problem.  So Stevie announced that they were giving everybody with an iPhone 4 free cases - or a full refund for people who still aren't happy.

Apple did what it had to do, true.  Consumer Reports did mention that you could get a reception fix through an iPhone case.  While some people praise the fix, many people comment that it isn't permanent.  Jobs didn't mention any work on getting a fix, and I can only assume that the phones being shipped up here to Canada are going to have the same problem.  There are some theories that phones are getting delayed to fix the problem, but I somewhat doubt it.  Apple is pretty notorious for being slow with updating their products.

At this point, I'm wondering if Apple would have even bothered with the cases if Consumer Reports didn't say anything.

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iGoogle

If you're a regular reader - *insert disbelief here* - you might have noticed the changes to the site.  Among these changes is the new subheading: A (hopefully) daily tech news blog.

Yeah.  I haven't been keeping up well on that, have I?

So, I thought that I would try out iGoogle last week.  For those of you who don't know what iGoogle is, it's Google's alternate homepage.  Of course, you all know about the clean-cut homepage that Google usually sports, designed to load really fast.  iGoogle is an optional build-up of that.

What?  I'm not gonna let you look at my Facebook.  Creeper.

The Twitter and Facebook gadget alone is reason enough to go to the site.  In my opinion, it's much better than those sites that make their whole business off of putting Twitter and Facebook together.  The only downside is that you don't get FB chat on iGoogle.  Another really nice feature is the weather centre.  As you can see, it's matching the extension I have next to the address bar (although I don't know why I have two weather centers now.)  It also has news feeds in there, which you can customize. Other features that I don't have on my page include comics, games, and a TV guide.

The best feature, though, would have to be the Google Calendar feature.  I started my own calendar up recently so that I can keep track of what I'm doing next year when I'm attending university.  Having the gadget there really helps.  I can get my Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as my schedule, on one site.  I highly recommend iGoogle for anyone who doesn't already have something like this.

Is there anything Dan Brown won't do?

Wow.  Dan Brown.  What a guy.


For those of you who don't know Dan Brown, he's another YouTuber.  One that I haven't been following so much, but respected nonetheless.  From his early days as a Rubik's Cube expert, Dan has come to the forefront of the YouTube community, currently either forming giant collaboration projects or discussing user-generated questions in his basement, which looks like it could be a war room in WWII-era Britain.

Dan Brown in one of his better moments

Just now, Dan officially announced his new project, Dan 3.0, at VidCon.  Earlier this week, he posted a video leading up to the announcement.

Today, he announced the content of this project.  Starting August 1st, Dan is going to give control of his live into the hands of his viewers.  Wow.  I have to admire Dan's ambition here.  There are, of course, going to have to be limits on what people can do here.  In a world that can have 4chan, there are bound to be people that are going to try their best to make him buy a house or something equally lucrative.  Although I have yet to hear the full details on Dan's project, I really hope he can pull this off.  I'm going to be sure to pay more attention to his videos in the future.  To anybody reading this, what are your thoughts on Dan 3.0?

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YouTube makes jobs!

YouTube made a couple of big announcements at VidCon today that I wanted to address. First of all, there was the announcement that YouTube will soon offer 4k-resolution videos, which is actually better than Imax.

Holy shit.

YouTube kind of jumped the gun on this one, didn't they? Never mind that the necessary network speed to quickly download this is not available outside of South Korea, one big factor is that pretty much 99% of all monitors don't go above 1080p. You would need to get a projector that is "typically the size of a small refrigerator" (YouTube's words, not mine) just to watch the video to its full capacity. Although it's nice to see that we can take it that far, it just isn't really worth it to add on to the site, in my opinion.

The second announcement is the announcement of the YouTube Partner Grant Program. I've long been a fan of Internet commerce, and I really approve of the YouTube Partner program. I've seen many people who make their living off of YouTube (a person I mentioned in this blog before, Wheezy Waiter, just started vlogging full-time), and I personally have wanted to get into the business. Although I likely wouldn't qualify for this grant (I don't really have that many views), it's really nice to know that many young videographers are getting what they need to start making videos, especially in this economic downturn. I have to give YouTube a thumbs-up for that grant.

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The National Administration of Self-Esteem and Assimilation

E3 was boring.

Well, that's a bit harsh, but it was pretty forgetful, in any case. The main show was the Nintendo 3DS, the 3D portable console. It was really funny to see both Sony and Microsoft so obviously upstaged by Nintendo, when both of them are pretty much trying to emulate the Wii in the next year.

But enough about that.

I read an article about NASA last week. It would appear that Obama is trying to change NASA's goals. Instead of "going where no man has gone before", NASA now has goals that are a bit closer to Earth: To inspire children and young adults to pursue scientific careers, and to reach out to the Muslim community.

Now, like many people, I scoffed. I scoffed hard. I scoffed like Steve Jobs at a Microsoft convention. 40 years ago, NASA was the only agency to land on the Moon. Today, NASA is still the only agency to land on the Moon. The difference between this is that now, nobody is landing on the moon. Nobody has gone beyond low earth orbit since 1972, when Gene Cernan stepped on the moon for the last time (and yes, I do believe the Moon landings were real. I might do a post later on why I think that). Now Obama's trying to get them out of even going into LEO. It's a bit crazy.

But then I thought on it. Last summer, I was big on space. Of course, last summer was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. I really wanted to go into space. In fact, I'm sure everyone has really wanted to go into space at some time. So, NASA actually can inspire people to pursue scientific careers. But it was able to do that before. It was able to inspire by undertaking grand projects, like the moon landings and the ISS. So why take the US out of orbit?

I took a good look at the second of NASA's new goals. Obama wants the American scientific community to partner with the Muslim scientific community, to get space programs in the Middle East. This is instead of partnering with Russia, the EU, and Japan, with whom the US could achieve more great projects. This has more of a political goal. One of the main reasons that the Middle East is so violent, no matter what anyone tells you, is jealousy. One way to get the Middle East to co-exist peacefully is to get them on an even footing with the rest of the world, and with each other. One way to do that is to get them their own space program. Or so Obama hopes. It's still up in the air if the Middle East will accept this help. It certainly would be nice to see more independent space programs out there, and it is also nice to see Obama trying to win back the American reputation of multilateral leadership. It could turn out that

In conclusion, this could turn out to be an important part of Obama's presidency. But only time will tell if this would make him one of the "great negotiators", or if his presidency was a waste of time.

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Light-speed High School

Well, I'm starting to figure out why tabloids make so much money. Let me recap my last story for you.

On Sunday, at around 9:30 PM EST, a post was made on the "infamous" /b/ thread on 4chan, telling people to search up "Justin Bieber syphilis". With the popularity of the /b/ board, and the extreme hatred some people feel towards Justin Bieber, the board managed to get the search term up to #1 on Google Trends (although you won't be able to find it now). So, I stumble on this 2 hours later, and find rumors that CNN, FOX News, ebaumsworld and TMZ, among others, have reported this as true. While I didn't find any mention on TMZ.com or ebaumsworld, it's possible that a TV segment speculating the rumor came up on CNN and FOX.

Now, both Bieber-haters and -lovers were in an uproar. At least 40 questions on Yahoo! Answers were started within an hour of my discovery. Vast amounts of blog posts were made. And the number of visitors on this site doubled in less than an hour.

That's the power of the internet. Now that we've got information going at close to the speed of light over the Internet, it takes that much quicker for rumors to spread. Think of your average high school on Red Bull, speed, and steroids at the same time.

So I guess it'll be a return to tech news for me, now that my "15 minutes of fame" is done. Not that E3 is this week or anything...

The influence of 4chan

Wow. Just, wow.

So, I went onto 4chan for the first time in ever, pushed there by a TED talk from Christopher Poole, when suddenly, I stumbled along this:

So, I decided to do the search, just for sh*ts and giggles, and I find this:

I don't believe it. 4chan has managed to con CNN into thinking Justin Bieber's got syphilis. In less than 2 hours. Read down on that page and you'll see that Fox News has reported the same story (I'm assuming a bit here).

Wow. Good on ya, 4chan. Is it ironic that the talk I was watching had to do with the whole influence of 4chan deal?

UPDATE 11:33 PM EST: I just figured out that the certain thread on 4chan has just been deleted.

UPDATE 12:25 AM EST: Well, as far as I know, I'm the only one who confirmed this. There might be others, but they aren't high enough on google. Neither am I, I guess, if nobody else has commented on it. Just one last time before I go to bed: Justin Bieber does not have syphilis. I repeat, Justin Bieber does not have syphilis.

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ROCK BAND 3

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!

Rock Band 3.

Did I mention OMG?

It seems weird that, even though I'm basically flat broke, I can still get excited over new games, rare as it may be. But Rock Band 3 is definitely getting me excited.

For one, there's the pro mode. I'm a great Rock Band drummer, if you haven't noticed. I've also been messing around with the drums that we have in the band room at school, and I'm getting pretty good at those too. Pro mode for drums seems like a challenge that I'm willing to take up. Also, as a musician, I can see pro mode as a way to get people to actually learn how hard it is to play the actual guitar, or the actual keyboard. It isn't as easy as it looks. The option of having pro mode on helps the game keep its "party game" feel, while appealing to those hardcore, need-to-get-100%-on-Dragonforce players.

The vocal harmonies is a great addition, too. I loved this part in The Beatles: Rock Band, although I didn't get much of a chance to try it out. This was mostly because all of my friends hate the Beatles. Applying the three-part vocals to a wider variety of songs not only will appeal to more players (Flight of the Conchords, anybody?), but gives the crew at Harmonix more of a library to work with, while letting more people actually play the game. Seriously, after Rock Band 3, you're gonna have to work hard to get more people on one console.

Now, I'm a piano player. Naturally, when I listen to Baba O'Riley or Bohemian Rhapsody, I play along with the keyboard/piano solo. While I'm still neutral about the addition of keyboards, it has potential.

One of the things I have to give Guitar Hero credit for (after Harmonix got axed) was the ability to drop in and out of songs in the middle of the song seamlessly (well, that and having any combination of instruments). I like seeing that Harmonix has incorporated this into Rock Band 3 (which I feel is justified - hypocritically on my part - since Activision ripped off Harmonix here), which keeps it pretty laid-back.

Not that there aren't any flaws in this game. One concerns the addition of the keyboards. Now, whenever I get together with 3 friends and play 4-player Rock Band, I find it pretty hard to see my part. Of course, I could get a bigger TV, but I still need to get a job. Another instrument added in there would only make it more cramped and harder to see.

My other main concern is going to be the price tag. When Rock Band 1 came out, it cost me $200 for a guitar, drums and mic. With Rock Band 3, you're adding the Pro guitar, cymbals for the drums, and a keyboard. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole set came out to $300, maybe $350.

Since I'm going to be living in residence next year, this is pretty exciting for me. When 7 people can play music at one time, you've got almost the ultimate party game. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna look for a job so I can buy this.

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Finally!

It looks like SpaceX has finally launched their Falcon 9 rocket. It also looks like it went off almost perfectly. Congratulations, SpaceX.

This launch opens up many possibilities. For one, the cost per launch of a Falcon 9 rocket is around $50 million, about 15% of that of the Space Shuttle. Also, it takes the space business further away from the government, which is more interested in other pursuits. Commercial space is really where it's going to be at, the way that airplanes were last century.

However, there's still some other stuff that has me worried about commercial spaceflight. First of all, it seems to be getting off to a slow start. The Falcon 9 was delayed by over half a year before it finally got off the ground. Commercial spaceflight has been crawling along since it first started. The first person in space from commercial spaceflight was about 7 years ago (I think). It took the US government 8 years between the first orbital spaceflight and the moon landing. Meanwhile, commercial spaceflight has seemingly gone backwards. While there are numerous projects in development, there hasn't been a real breakthrough in a while. Which could be said about the entire field, I suppose.

Second of all, there's the enormous work involved with launching people into space. The Wright Brothers were able to fly largely on their own financial and intellectual steam. They were bicycle shop owners. The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, also founded PayPal, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. He was able to employ professional engineers and scientists to get the Falcon 9 off the ground. The Wright Brothers didn't even build the engine used in their plane. They just made it aerodynamic. I don't see anybody selling rocket engines on the corner.

That doesn't mean that it's all expensive. There has been a few successful attempts to get pictures of space with just a balloon, a camera and a cellphone. I highly recommend that you try it. It would make for a great summer project.

I'm still pretty excited for the coming expansion of commercial spaceflight, if it ever does get here. For now, however, I'm gonna keep a lookout for stray rocket engines.

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The Library

I went to the library downtown a few days ago to kill time by surfing the web. I noticed, however, that every site I visited wanted me to upgrade the browser.

Which is when I figured out that the library still has Internet Explorer 6.

Kill me now.

Nothing really worked. Wikipedia was 10x the size it should have been, Twitter's layout was all wonky, and I couldn't even get into Facebook.

They had Firefox there too, but it wasn't really an improvement. The version of Firefox they run is as old as IE6.

A little investigation revealed that the library hadn't updated their software in almost five years. Their copy of Microsoft Office was from 2002, the messenger service was MSN messenger (not Windows Live Messenger), and they even had the very first version of Google Earth (the newest software they had, being released in June 2005).

Now, think about all that's happened in those 5 years. Five years ago, the NHL lockout had just ended. In the last 5 years, the Who released their last album. Katrina hit. Dumbledore died on page 596. 2007. Obama got elected (C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER). And I wrote about how the library has no sense of technology (you're damn right it's a sense).

You know, I shouldn't be surprised. Every single person who works at the library is a middle-aged woman. I wouldn't imagine that they would have the inclination, not to mention the knowledge (no offense, but they're librarians) to upgrade their software.

In the meantime, I'll go home if I want to get on the internet.

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A momentous occasion

This has to be the third best moment of my life, after graduation and being born. Today, I finally five-starred Panic Attack.

I'd like to take this time to thank the Academy, and everyone that made this achievement possible. So yeah, that's been my weekend.

Also, it snowed here all weekend. I hate this town.

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Free stuff!

I was browsing my Facebook the other day when I came upon a news post by the "Chuck" fan page (the TV show, for those who are confused). They said that the latest episode would be available for viewing. I took this to mean torrenting, or at the very least, watching it on nbc for a hefty fee. It happened to be neither. I was able to go to nbc.com and find full episodes of Chuck, The Office, and other shows. Now, this might be available only to you in the US, or I might not have the right player, since it didn't play for me, but the concept of it is something that should have come along a long time ago.

Another thing I found out was that two of my textbooks for next semester, for both my computing science courses, are available for free download in an online library, with a valid student code. This is another big help to me, and saves me at least $200 in theoretical textbook funds.

I decided to go on a sort of "quest" to see how much content on the Internet I can get for free (without breaking the law). Truth is, there's a lot, provided in the US. All four major broadcasters provide free full episodes of shows that they show on their channel to citizens in the US. A number of authors give permission to have their work distributed on the Internet for your enjoyment on your Kindle (I actually laughed a little typing that last word), and of course there are a large number of games on the web, if you don't mind playing flash games. Even Internet radio is catching on.

The two areas behind the line are feature films and music. I can kind of get both, but there are ways to get around those flaws. The main flaw with movies is the wide array of distributors, and their unwillingness to communicate on an open medium. The movie distributors only ever release their film on reels (never seen the screening room in a theatre, they might use different technology now) and DVD/Blu-Ray discs (does anybody distribute on VHS now?). They control the supply, until someone gets a copy on Pirate Bay. The best way for them to save their hides would be to overcome that fear, and either put flash advertising throughout an internet-distributed movie (financially viable since there is no cost going to the movie theater or theater workers) or subscriptions.

Music. Sigh. You might know how much I despise the RIAA for wanting money over distribution if you've read earlier posts. Just wow. But anyway, I think that we'll be seeing more independently distributing artists. This won't be as much of a problem as independent films, since it costs relatively little to make an album over, say, Avatar.

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I'm edumacated now!

Yeah, I haven't been posting much. For one thing, I haven't found anything that I'm particularly excited or angry about, apart from the usual RIAA stuff. Another thing is that I've had some other personal stuff to deal with. But I think I came out on top

Item number one: I am now a theoretical graduate. I haven't actually graduated yet, since I've got diploma exams next month, worth 50% of my mark. But I have a really cool hat now, and a diploma and rose.

Item number two: My residence fee, which none of you will remember is the whole reason I started this blog in the first place, is now paid, along with my tuition for next year. As of now, I have $4250 in scholarships, plus another $7000 - $8000 saved up in the bank. Since I'm able to pay my tuition and textbooks for next year, my parents have agreed to pay for my housing and food next year, a total of $6200.

Item the third: I got singled out for two out of eight awards during my graduation: The RCMP Citizenship Award and the award named after my school (gotta protect my privacy somehow, even if Facebook doesn't), which was a pretty cool thing.

So it seems I've come out on top this weekend. I've even got a day and a half left in it! Rock Band time!

Afternote: It seems that the first launch of the Falcon 9 has been delayed by another week or so. It's on your head, SpaceX.

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SpaceX, get your act together!

So, just some advice to everyone out there: drinking a 1-liter slushie in less than 5 minutes is not such a good idea.

My favorite viewing spectacle of all time would have to be rocket launches. Not just because I want to be one of the people to see a crash, I also like the technological advancement it represents. It's something when we can send people hundreds of miles up in the span of a few minutes.

So you'd imagine that I'd be excited to hear that SpaceX was planning to launch a rocket from Cape Canaveral today. Emphasis on was. Big was there.

I first heard about the Falcon 9 rocket around the middle of March. Back then, it had a set launch date for April 6. As April crept closer and closer, I got pretty excited. I only ever got the chance to watch Space Shuttle launches (the Ares rocket doesn't count, it didn't succeed and it was scrapped three months ago), and it was exciting to have a change.

Then it got delayed a month.

I thought no problem. I mean, they're doing rocket science, aren't they? They want to have it right.

So a month has passed by. Where's my rocket?

About 9 days in the future, it seems. The launch has been delayed another time to next Sunday. I'm starting to get pretty impatient now. I did some research, and SpaceX has had this coming for a while now, over six months. Sure, it's rocket science, but you're a FUCKING SIX MONTHS OFF YOUR FIRST DEADLINE. Now, if I was six months off of a deadline at school... well, the semester would be over.

So, I'm going to be watching on May 16, or whenever they decide to launch this thing. But you better hope this works, SpaceX. If not, you're gonna have a lot to answer for.

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I'm back

<.<

>.>

Empty around here, isn't it?

I'd like to say it was school. I'd also like to say it's scholarships for next year. But really, I don't do much in school and I applied for one scholarship so far. I'm lazy. What can I say?

I hope I can get back into the thick of things. I'm not going to stick to the daily schedule, though. I'll post as much as possible, just not every day necessarily.

So, I finally got a proper look at the iPad yesterday, even though it isn't out in Canada (I think). A classmate brought it in, and I am actually pretty impressed, although it was a bit lacking. I found a big difference in using both your hands when using the iPad and using your thumbs when using the iPhone. It just gets really tiring. I took the elements app and the Marvel comics app for a spin.

The Elements app is really good, I have to say. I found it accurate and really entertaining. However, the usefulness of this app is in question. Sure, it looks cool, but so did The Force Unleashed. I don't play The Force Unleashed anymore, and it's not likely that I'll use the Elements app for anything worthwhile. Although it showcases the graphics capability of the iPad, I don't actually think I would use it for more than its $10+ worth.

The Marvel comics app is astounding. If you've ever seen how, in the movies, they run through the panels of a comic, by panning from panel to panel, it's just like that, and it looks amazing. The one thing I could say that would ruin a comic app would be the need to zoom out and in between panels. Marvel comics has none of this. I cannot tell you how exited I was when I saw the transition between panels. I'm not much of a comic reader, but that's mainly because there are no places to buy comics in my town. With the Marvel comics app, I could see myself getting very much into comic books.

Overall, the iPad does good for itself. The apps are above par, and the possibilities of using it are dizzying to think about. I can see myself buying one of these, but I think I'll wait until next generation, to see what Apple improves upon.

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Miegakure

I read XKCD, and saw a game in the comic called Miegakure. It looked pretty good, and I thought you guys should check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBoY6s-Fhw

Rube Goldberg, 90 years later

Nothing much this time, just a link to a bunch of Rube Goldberg videos. After that one OK Go video, they seem to be pretty popular.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/rube-goldberg-video-gallery/

CNN this week

Wow, that's scary. Last time, I said I wouldn't make it to 2:00 PM without sleeping, and that's right when I fell asleep.

So, I've been paying attention in Social class - which is rare for me - and after watching a bit of CNN, I think I'll try and watch that channel more often.

Sure, most of the correspondents are opinionated and biased, but there was one man who didn't actually seem that way, and that made me think.

He was talking about the current economic status of the United States, and how the health care bill would be digging a bigger hole for America. He went on to claim that he wanted to abolish Social Security, which to me seemed extremely radical.

He said that not only was Obama to blame, so was George Bush. That struck me as odd. Here, this guy was talking about Republican views, but he said the Republicans were at fault. Now, I support the health care bill, but it seems to me that he has a good point. He said that the government was paying out Social Security with IOU's, which was true. He said that for the government to not have the money that they took from the people to pay social security means they've been scamming the American people, which is also true.

But it works in places like Canada, the UK, France, and many other places in the world. So why not the US?

Two reasons: Tradition and Corruption (or, less radically, misplaced ideals). That money had to go somewhere. Name your area, and it's a good bet there's Social Security money in there. Bailout, energy, war fund. But it's time to own up, government. Give the people the money back.

This last comment is directed toward Rick Sanchez, who hosted Campbell Brown tonight: You promised John Fund and Craig Crawford, mano a mano. There was no fistfighting that I could see. Get your facts right.

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