Microsoft Redesigns iPod Package … you have to watch it.

Mirror

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers”
— Princess Leia

The MPAA has issued a new round of lawsuits against torrent sites. They have set their sights on TorrentSpy, IsoHunt, TorrentBox, NiteShadow, and Bthub. Notably absent is Demonoid, Pirate Bay, and MiniNova. The problem with these lawsuits, besides bringing many people’s attention to the existing sites, is that shutting them down is pointless. For every one that is shutdown, five more pop up in it’s place. When SuperNova went down, almost ten more appeared to fill the void. Ironically half of which are currently being sued. It seems like a losing battle for the MPAA. They really have to find a way to distribute TV and Movies over the internet in a manner that will appeal to the people pirating in order to make them stop. Suing these sites into the ground will not stop them. Online music stores like iTunes have done a massive service to the RIAA by cutting down piracy. When given the choice, most people are willing to pay for bandwidth savings and higher quality copies. It will be interesting to see how this turns out, but I highly doubt that there will be any major fallout from this round of shutdowns.

Very cool, a NES alarm clock.

Wow, a photo mosaic of the front pages of every major internet news site that ran the story about Cheney shooting that lawyer.

A new invention might be the answer to the power/water crisis around the world. An estimated 80% of disease could be wiped out if everyone had access to clean water. One entrepreneur, Dean Kamen — creator of Segway, has developed a solution. Two machines that could work in tandem off of each other. The first is a water purifier. It will take any type of water, and purify it. It does so by vaporizing the water and spewing out the waste. The second machine is a one kilowatt power generator. It works by burning anything that will burn, in particular manure — waste matter. Hooked together, they two machines could purify drinking water from sewage and generate 1kW a day. At the moment, these hand-made prototypes cost $100k each. Kamen expects that mass produced in Bangledesh, these machines would cost around 2k or 3k. The business model he has worked out is similar to that of village cell phones. Find your self one entreprenuer, loan them the money for the device, and they lease it out to others. In this case, Kamen believes you create three Entrepreneurs. Loan one enough money for the generator. Loan another enough money for low-power halogen bulbs. And create a third to gather waste matter to power the generator. All three are interlinked, and they lease their power to the people, who now have light at night. This will increase productivity and increase leisure time. The clean water purifier might be sold as an additional mechanism to power the generator that happens to have the added benefit of providing clean drinking water.

Its a neat idea, but I worry about the environmental impact of something like this. If it is low, then I could see acquiring something like this here. I mean, one purifies the sewage from a house and using it to power the house. $4k - $6k for clean water and power isn’t that much. I pay at least $1500 for power and water a year, which gives one about a four year recoup. Add to that the possibility of generating more power than you use and feeding back onto the SaskPower grid and being paid for it, that decrease the recoup length. Mind, that is assuming ones house generates enough sewage to power the house.
In any case, you can read more details about it here.

I must admit, I’ve been really hoping that the PS3 comes out and is successful, but the reason I wish them all the luck is because I believe Microsoft to be an evil corporation. Now I see that Sony is not different than Microsoft. It is an evil, evil corporation. I understand the outrage that some people experienced after sony used rootkits on their DRM’ed CDs, but at least warned people that DRM technology was employed on these CDs. If it had stopped there, I would be willing to forgive, but it didn’t. For Christmas, my brother gave my the Mr & Mrs Smith DVD. Great movie, but I’m glad I never played it on a windows system. It may not be in my copy (aparently it cropped up in the German version), but you can’t pull shit like this, it’s unethical!

“Seriously, guys — it totally sucks to be you.”
— Jeremy Parish

Who is winning the console wars?   1UP has a great article on the issue entitled “Redefining Success.”  “Hardcore gamers” aka Whiny little snot nosed brats with too much time on their hands have been saying for a long time that Nintendo is dead and dying and will be irrelevant in a couple of years.   They said it before the Gamecube launched, they are saying it now.  Microsoft’s Xbox is so much better.  Blah Blah Blah.   The article addresses this issue fairly well IMO.   Nintendo has only had one money-losing fiscal year in its entire 45-years in business, and that was three years ago.   The Xbox, on the other hand, has been hemorraging so much cash, that current estimates place it around $4 billion.  This is only going to get worse with the Xbox 360.  In any case, the article addresses the fact that Nintendo isn’t trying to compete against the PS3 and the Xbox.   They are instead carving out their own niche.   I wish them luck with that.

“MacGyver uses everyday items to save people; Jack Bauer uses everyday items to kill them.”

Read more.

I used to watch 26 episodes a season.   Mind, that was abnormal.   The average was 24.   That has recently decreased to 22, then 20 episodes a season.   Last night, when I watched the 15th episode of Surface, the annoyingly creepy recap voice said “And now the season finale.”  WTF!   15 episodes in a season!?   Was the show cancelled or have I been ripped off?  My understanding was it was doing okay WHERE ARE MY OTHER FIVE EPISODES YOU NBC THUGS!

The Compiz Windows Manager has been released in a CVS. Compiz uses XGL (previously mentioned). Check it out. Or not. I appears Compiz isn’t on that CVS anymore (though it is here of, and you’ll need XGL as well)

For more information, check out SuSe’s Xgl page. and SuSe’s Compiz page.