Conversation re: SF TechSessions

[16:42] veronica: goat hill pizza tonight
[16:43] veronica: too bad eric is in thailand trapped by the coup
[16:43] veronica: he’s missing good pizza
[16:43] hotprincess1015*: nah….. I’m sure he’s having fun still
[16:43] hotprincess1015: I’d trust thailand even during the coup
[16:43] hotprincess1015: probably still safer than SF
[16:43] hotprincess1015: ha
[16:43] veronica: it’s martial law, whats the worst that can happen?

*He gave me that pseudonym, by the way

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Quick rundown:

+ New Shuffle
+ Color nanos (precious)
+ Movies
+ iTV (as it’s code-named) looks sweet
+ Better battery life for iPods in general
+ 80GB? Booyah! And it’s pretty cheap at $349
+ Games on the iPod

- Only 4GB nanos have colors. WTF?!
- Disney movies only so far (will soon add more, hopefully)
- iTV may only support iTunes purchased video (heard from a reliable source inside)
- You have to buy games? Oh rly?
- No turtleneck? What happened, Steve?

+/- Movies at 640×480 (Meh… better than 320×240 I guess)

Ok, and now for my real rant. I was so close to being free for the bonds of Fairplay. I was talking about other Mac-compatible players, planning on burning/ripping all my iTunes tracks to destroy the DRM, maybe even going Media Center in the house. But then they brought out those little color nanos, and the Apple fangirl inside of me gave a little gasp of joy, much like that of a hamster seeing a ferris wheel for the first time and thinking it’s the biggest hamster wheel in the world. Uh… yeah, just like that.

However, those dreams were crushed when I learned that only the 4GB nanos would have the colors. But… but… I wanted a 8GB pink nano, AND I WANT IT NOW!! *ahem* Sorry. I get a little hysterical thinking about it.

The final insult came when I installed iTunes 7.0 on my PC at work. I have iTunes on there so I can check the podcast to make sure it’s loading. After the lengthy downloading and installing process, I went into the program to check things out. I liked the new design, but my podcasts were acting funny. And by funny, I mean not loading. Then Explorer crashed. I tried again. Crash. Again. Crash. You get the picture. I gave up, and went to the BOL forums to get more impressions. Let’s just say that apparently the Windows XP version of iTunes enjoys not only crashing, but taking down the iPod with it. What the hell?

I’m installing iTunes now at home on the G5, so hopefully things will go a little smoother. If you want to hear my hysterics in audio form, check out the Buzz Out Loud and MP3 Insider podcasts for today. And if you’ve gotten this far into the post, let me know what you think about the annoucements.

References: News.com, Engadget (nice work Ryan and Paul!), MacRumors

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Everyone remembers (for better or for worse) the Numa Numa song. Few people however remember the name Gary Brolsma, the genius behind the video. It was widely reported that Gary was upset over his newfound fame, but it’s clear today that he was simply biding his time before releasing another scourge upon humanity.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is New Numa:

Gary also has a fancy new homepage for the video, NewNuma.com, where we can chat with Gary, and even buy Numa gear! Wow. This is feeling very Snakes on a Plane to me: take an Internet phenomena, feed off the buzz for a while, and then try to generate manufactured buzz. Where SoaP was hysterical, this reeks of too much desperation. Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but c’mon! How are you going to try and make another Numa video, Gary? Here’s what went wrong:

1. The song isn’t nearly as catchy as the original, Dragostea din Tei.
2. The video is trying much too hard to be cheesy. Stick with the webcam.
3. Gary, we don’t want to see you acting like a star. You’re a man of the people. You symbolize everyone who has ever lip-synched to bad pop music, sung into their hairbrushes, or even engaged in drunken karaoke (I know nothing about that last one). We loved your shy, “accidental celebrity” attitude.

The video so far has been watched 1,079,695 times, and I’m sure it’ll double its numbers by the end of tomorrow. But in my humble opinion, this new video won’t be reaching the cult status of the last. We still love you, Gary!

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Teenage Veronica would not be happy with mid-twenties Veronica. Not only because mid-twenties Veronica can’t have more than two cocktails before calling it a night, but because it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to me to block MySpace/social networking sites from schools and libraries. Apparently the government agrees, and so they passed the DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) bill in the House. Makes sense at first glance, right? Keep bad people from contacting kids through these sites on school time (doesn’t do much for protecting them at home, but that’s for another post).

But wait a sec. Lets take a look at this bill. From Ars Technica:

Here’s how DOPA defines social networking sites:
(i) is offered by a commercial entity;
(ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
(iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
(iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
(v) enables communication among users.’.

Goodbye LiveJournal. Goodbye Blogger. Goodbye forums of any kind. Oh, and CNET, because we allow members to make profiles. This not only blocks kids and teens from accessing and contributing to educational forums, but also from expressing themselves. This is a blanket rule that has the possibility of doing more harm than good. I think schools have the right to block MySpace/Friendster/Orkut, etc. on the grounds that they can be dangerous, but where does it stop?

Thoughts?

UPDATE: Two things… this reminds me a lot of how schools would attempt to block sexually explicit material using web-filtering software, and therefore prevent students from seeing information on safe sex, anatomy, ART, anything that the filter decided was “explicit.”

Also, my title was not intentionally funny until I looked at it again. “DOPA means”? Dopamine? Maybe if they just pumped people full of dopamine they’d be happy to let this bill pass. Har har!

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