February 2009

My Battlestar Predictions
Submitted Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 3:26:22 AM by Klaitu

Okay, see the date up there? There are 4 episodes of Battlestar Galactica left (3 if you count the finale as one episode). These are my predictions about how the show will end.

1. Starbuck is a Human-Cylon hybrid baby

Starbuck's mother is human, but her father is actually the elusive Cylon "Number 7" who was "most human" and apparently met an unfortunate demise.

2. The Galactica itself will not survive

It will probably go out in a blaze of glory fending off the evil Cylons, and probably Adama will die with it.

3. They will settle on a planet

I don't know if it will be the old Earth they found, or some other planet, but there will be a planet. It will probably be called Earth either way.

4. Laura Roslin will die

.. but only after she leads them to the planet.

5. Anders, Starbuck, and Hera..

Are all plugged into some kind of cylon internet. The same thing that the hybrids are plugged into. The cylon internet is probably run by "god" or the cylon god, whatever his name is.

6. The "Shocker" ending

At the end, probably the very end, it will be revealed that whatever planet the people land on turns out to be Earth, like our Real Life earth, and that the story of Battlestar Galactica happened either in prehistory, or 6000 years ago. They may even go so far as to having "history repeat itself" by having someone on "our real earth" create the "first" cylon.

Stay Tuned to see if my predictions were right!

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Bucket
Submitted Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 3:31:28 PM by Klaitu

Its about time!

The Internet and Insanity
Submitted Monday, February 23, 2009 - 4:46:14 PM by Klaitu

The tubes we humans call the "internet" have been host to any number of irrelevant discussions by anonymous people. It's always been true of the Internet, even from the very beginning.

A lot of it stems from what is termed "Internet Anonymity". That is to say that you, reading this right now, have no idea who I actually am, unless you also happen to know me in the "real world" as well. I could tell you who I was.. or lie about who I was, and you'd have no real way to prove it, the best you could do is compare records and decide if you believed me or not.

So, in effect, I could say whatever I want online, and there are no consequences in the "real world". So can you, so can anyone, which is why blogging has become such a phenomenon.

The effect further extends into my actions online. There are many things that can be done online that you can't do in "real life". The technology of the internet opens the door for new ways of communicating, new ways to store data, new ways to manage data. This technology can be used to change the real world in positive ways, or it can be used for nefarious ends as well.

We all know how prevalent porn is on the internet. The internet is great at displaying images, and more recently, videos.. and if there's anything we humans like to watch, it's naked people.. doing things.

Now we've got all this technology, and people have started to use the internet for illegal activities. As a society, we have to decide how to deal with this fact.

Enter the Internet SAFETY Act of 2009.

It's a bill that was just recently introduced. Here's the stated goal, directly out of the bill itself:

To amend title 18, United States Code, to protect youth from exploitation by adults using the Internet, and for other purposes.

Since this bill has been introduced there has been a veritable explosion of discussion among those anonymous internet people, and the most passionate and vocal arguments are (as usual) the people who oppose the act.

This isn't the first time that the government has introduced laws about the internet, and each time these laws are opposed by internet activists. The internet is something I care about, I care about technology, but I have many times found myself at odds with these activists.

Opposition Argument 1:

The Internet SAFETY Act is not aimed at protecting children, it is instead aimed at curtailing copyright piracy.

My response:

The bill contains 9 sections. 8 of the sections directly relate to Child Pornography or Child Exploitation. Of the 2 remaining sections, 1 updates the RICO act regarding embezzlement, 1 requires service providers to maintain records for two years.

I have never understood why senators and congressmen can't keep their bills on topic, but this one seems to be pretty solid. The sections of this bill update laws to define purchasing child pornography as a crime, and providing Child Pornography as a crime. 3 of the sections increase penalties for laws that are already on the books. Even the RICO update makes sense in this context, and the requiring providers to maintain records makes sense in order to track down people distributing child porn over the internet.

There is nothing in this bill regarding copyright piracy, though you could construe section 5 (the ISP records one) as being able to be used for the investigation of other crimes as well.

Opposition Argument 2:

Child Predators and Child Porn are not that common on the internet, so we don't need to update our laws regarding them.

My response:

With all the things on the internet, I agree, Child Porn and Child Predators are not a statistically large chunk of that activity. I believe that the media has distorted public perception of the number of these crimes that actually exist.

However, the number of crimes being committed is not the sole criteria for determining laws. We have laws against blowing up federal buildings.. not something that happens often.

As someone who has worked at an ISP and has reported people to the FBI for distributing Child Pornography, as someone who has had to see Child Pornography as part of their job function.. I can safely tell you that laws aimed at making penalties harsher for these types of people.. laws that make it easier to catch these people and put them away are not a bad thing.

Opposition Argument 3:

The Internet SAFETY Act will require all people everywhere to maintain records on who accesses what network and when.

My response:

This is a ridiculous, extreme interpretation of the bill that was put forth by internet activists to garner support for their cause. The bill requires that service providers retain traffic records for 2 years. It does not require that Grandma keep records on who uses her computer. It doesn't require the Starbucks guy to take your personal information to use the Wi-Fi in the store.

Even if this law DID require nazi-style lockdown on who connects where, it would be next to impossible to enforce. It would require a fundamental change in the way that home routers work, and would cost millions.. in a time when the economy is in such a state.

Conclusion:

I have no doubt that section 5 will be used to investigate crimes other than Child Pornography and Exploitation. It might very well be used to track down people who are pirating copyrighted materials, people who are stealing other people's identities, and people who may be plotting assassinations or terrorist attacks.

So long as these investigations are a part of due process, I have absolutely no problem with it. It means that you actually can't do whatever the heck you want on the internet, that there are actually consequences of your actions.

This is usually where the opposition rolls out the "privacy violation" argument. You can't hide crimes behind a right to privacy. It's like saying "I have a right to steal this giant diamond, but the police can't investigate afterward!" or "Don't watch me kill this guy, you're violating my privacy!" Your privacy ends when a crime begins.

And then there's the "What about all those RIAA lawsuits that sued grandmas who don't own computers for copyright violation?" argument. Mistakes happen on both ends. People are always going to be accused of crimes they didn't commit, it's a fact of life. That's why we have a justice system to try and seperate the innocent out before they are punished.

Here's what it all boils down to:

Internet advocates want the Internet to be completely unregulated and unrestricted in every way, as it has largely been in the past. The want it this way because legality is an ambiguous concept at best on the internet, and because they love downloading illegal copies of whatever media they want with little chance of being punished.

The real kicker here is the reality of the situation. ISP's already retain records of your internet activity. They're already required to give this information to the police if the police need it for an investigation. The only thing Section 5 does is require that they retain the information for 2 years.

If you're doing illegal things on the internet you can be caught right now. The Internet SAFETY Act changes nothing for you.

The Internet is a place where it's easy to get all bent out of shape over something that is completely not an issue. It happens all the time. Just remember that in 5 years, nobody is going to care about the Internet SAFETY Act.. even if it passes.

The Big Bangs Theory
Submitted Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 12:34:25 AM by Klaitu

I'm about to use Star Trek to prove a point, but don't let that throw you off. This actually has nothing to do with Star Trek.

Once upon a time there was a hot actress named Michelle Forbes. Sure, she didn't age well, and she's a total uggo now, but 15 years ago, she was pretty hot.

Behold:

There she is, Michelle Forbes playing Ensign Ro Laren in Star Trek: The Next Generation. She's a Bajoran (thats the deal with the nose).

The producers liked her a lot, so they kept reusing her character occasionally. This is what happened to her two years later:

See those evil bangs? She went from hot starship pilot to lesbian truck driver with one haircut!

Aside from like 8 year old girls, the bowl bangs have got to go! They have no place on any woman, nor any man (except maybe Spock).

Flying Cars
Submitted Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 1:41:00 AM by Klaitu

Remember this classic? Nobody sells software like Avery Brooks. Dangit, Sisko says I need new software, well I need new software, that's all there is to it.

Sisko might have the upper hand in cool factor, but things like this used to happen to me at school:

Okay, I admit it. That used to happen to me at Hertz, too.

The Problem With Heroes
Submitted Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - 12:39:30 AM by Klaitu

Heroes has always been a mixed bag. When I first started watching Heroes, it gave the impression that it was going somewhere.. and it was, just nowhere particularly interesting.

The first season of Heroes led us to a showdown in New York, where there was supposed to be an awesome superhero battle, but there wasn't. It was just sort of mediocre.

Furthermore, Heroes was an ensemble cast, and half of the cast nobody cared about, so everyone ended up fast forwarding through half of each episode, picking out the parts that didn't suck.

The second season of Heroes was more of the same. The original idea they had was to have completely new characters in each season, but when they realized how stupid that was, they tried to make season 2 work without the new characters.. which of course, it was never designed to do.

The Writer's strike also played a role in cutting Heroes short, so I can't blame all of the problems on the writing.

Season 3 once again tried to repeat the original story.. again.. and once again, we didn't care. People turned off the show in spades because there was nothing new it offered.

They splid season 3 into 2 parts, and season 3.5 AGAIN is trying to repeat the same premises.

So, here's the problems with Heroes:

First you have the inherant problems of any superhero show. All of the superpowers have already been done before by the comic books. Superman alone has 7 powers to himself.. but the most similarity you're going to find is from the X-Men.

If I was writing this show (and sure, I'd take a crack at it) I would be very, very, very aware that the superpowers are ripoffs of other stories, and so I would find another emphasis.

Secondly, Heroes has this sort of running gag where someone has "future prediction powers". First it was Isaac Mendez, then they gave it to Sylar (which sort of made sense). Peter had it for awhile (which also sort of made sense), then they gave the exact same power to a guy in the middle of Africa, and they also gave it to Matt Parkman, who never had this power, but now he does. Why? Because the writers are stuck on "the future".

It's not really the powers which are that troublesome, it's the writer's depending on the "see the future and then watch it unravel" method of storytelling. Let me be clear: this mode of storytelling is CRAP. They would devote entire episodes to "Peter goes to the future" or "Hiro goes to the future", entire episodes which would end up erased because you already know the Heroes will change the future.

Finally, and most basically.. the plots are too predictable. Now, I'm not talking about the points that this show seems to foment in people.. as in "OMG what happened there, let's speculate!". Well, here.. I'll give you an example.

In the first episode of season 3, Hiro goes into the future (see theres a problem right there) where he witnesses Ando shoot the future him with a red bolt of energy. Presently, Ando does not have powers.

Then, later we find out that Ando's power is to take someone else's power and magnify it. His power is accompanied by red visual effects.

In the meantime, Hiro has had his powers sucked by Papa Patrelli. He is forlorn without his ability. Ando and Hiro have always been friends.

So, gee, what's going to happen? Is Ando going to zap Hiro with a super amount of his power in the hopes of reactivating it? Ohhh, I think SO!

If it ends up that Ando actually does kill Hiro, I will give Heroes my lifetime achievement award, and then stop watching it forever, since Hiro is really the only character worth anything on the show.

I hear that the writing and production staff behind Heroes has been changed.. apparently the powers that be also understand that Heroes has sucked for awhile, and they're bringing in new blood so that it won't suck.. next year.

Maybe.

C'mon Heroes, you have a lot of potential. Go ahead and stop sucking!

First Memory
Submitted Saturday, February 7, 2009 - 11:13:52 PM by Klaitu

Science guys tell us that humans retain knowledge of everything they're exposed to, the problem is recalling all of that knowledge. Most of us just can't access that information.

Have you ever tried to remember the first thing in your own memory? Well, the first thing that you can still access anyway? I sat and thought about it for awhile.

The first thing I can remember is standing against the railing in my crib. The walls are wood panel. There are small portraits along the top of the walls. There is a window to my right, and a door to my left. I'm tall enough to escape the crib if I want to, but I'm afraid of the height. If I climb over the rail, I'll fall to the ground. It's night time, but there is a lamp on somewhere. I want to sleep in a bed which is also in the room because it's a lot softer. I know the bed is there, but I can't remember what it looks like.

That's the oldest memory that I have. I can only imagine it's from perhaps 1980. So far as I can tell, I don't have any memories earlier than this.

If you haven't tried it, try it out. You might be suprised at what you remember!

So very wrong.
Submitted Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 3:20:00 AM by Klaitu

Warning, this video is hilarious!

However, it is *NOT SAFE FOR WORK*

5 Stars?
Submitted Monday, February 2, 2009 - 2:35:10 AM by Klaitu

While I'm on the topic of MP3 music, I figure I'll ask you readers a question.

You know how in Windows, the explorer defaults to "media listing" whenever it senses media files in a folder? When you're in media listing, you can see the "star ratings" for each individual song?

There, that's what it looks like. It isn't just MP3 files that brings this up, it's pictures and videos, too.

So, here's my question: Does anyone actually use these little star ratings? I can't for the life of me figure out why this feature was even invented.

I mean, I supposed I could go through all the zillions of MP3 files I have and give them all a completely subjective rating based on my current mood. The computer would store my ratings, but why?

Am I going to forget what songs I like, and which songs I don't? Why is it possible to 1-star a song? If I don't like a song, then why do I have it taking up space on my hard drive? Is the feature so that if I get hit by a bus, the people left after I croak will know what my favorite music was?

I suppose it's possible that media playing programs would skim this star data, and then try to feed me ads based on my likes and dislikes.. but if that's true then why should I go to all the trouble of providing some ad company with free research? It also doesn't explain why the star ratings appear on photos.

It's not like anyone else is going to see all my star ratings, so I'm the only one that will know what they are, and I should already know since I put them on there in the first place.

Honestly, if you use the star feature, write me and let me know why you use it, because I honestly can't figure out why they exist.

And anyways, who 5-stars the Nug? Sure, he's the Nug, but 5 stars? That's a bit much.

Winamp Bento
Submitted Monday, February 2, 2009 - 2:06:50 AM by Klaitu

Once upon a time, in a land called the 1990's, the MP3 was invented. In those early days, people put copyrighted MP3's directly on the internet.. on Geocities pages no less! You could just surf the web and find them, no problem! These were the days before Napster, when people had the first line of Pentium processors, which now had enough processing muscle to play MP3 files.. and how did those people play those MP3 files?

With a little program called Winamp.

Yes, these were the days when the Windows Media Player had not yet been invented, and the closest that Windows got to multimedia was "Sound Recorder".

Then, coupled with CD burning technology, people figured out that you could actually take MP3's and burn them onto CD's and essentially make your own mixtape.. except it wasnt a mixtape anymore, it was a CD!

I'm at a loss to explain what happened next, but people started making MP3 software that would play MP3's and burn CD's all in the same program.. of course, these programs did neither function very well, but people didn't know any better. People were going nuts burning CD's with crappy quality music on them.. and people were encoding MP3's with greater than 192 quality assuming that sctually meant anything.

And then the ipod was invented, and it was good. The people who designed the ipod had a good interface, and it basically reinvented the walkman, except now it was sporting weightless MP3 files instead of cassettes.

The only problem to all this was the fact that you couldn't just plug it into your computer, you had to install the nightmare program that is known as iTunes.. and heck, while you're at it, you might as well be forced to have Quicktime on your system.

"Every computer user wants extra software on their computer that does nothing, yet still consumes hard drive space and system resources!" Apple said, assuming that they were designing this program for the macintosh.

And wasn't iTunes grand? Keeping track of all those media files for you, but not telling you the size of each file or the quality. And really, why not make an MP3 playing program that takes up the whole screen so that we can place ads all over? Computer users love ads.

With that, Microsoft had to chime in with the Windows Media Player 10. Sure, the Windows Media Player 9 could play virtually any type of media file, but it didn't consume the entire screen and half your system resources, so obviously it needed an upgrade.

The rest of us who just wanted a program that would play MP3 files without slowing our computers to a crawl continued to use Winamp. Let's face it, MP3 files haven't changed in the last 15 years, so a program that is designed to fit in the memory space of a computer from 1995 is tiny by today's standards, and is hardly a blip on a modern CPU.

Of course, Winamp also got itself some upgrades over the years. It got bought by AOL (along with ICQ) and briefly turned into a musicmatch sort of media playlist monstrosity.. and when it got too much, the Winamp users merely didn't upgrade and continued to use their "not crap" versions for years to come.

Things began to mellow out again for whatever reason. Maybe computers caught up with the resource-hogging iTunes-like programs. Maybe the bigwigs finally got a clue and toned down their programs.

Eventually, Apple let you install iTunes without quicktime (but if you want quicktime, you have to install iTunes, and then uninstall it). Their windows tray icon program isn't as insidious as it once was, either. Windows Media Player also had some upgrades, namely that windows is okay now if wmplayer.exe isn't constantly running in the background, searching for new media that you told it not to search for.

Winamp though, being one of the first had always kept it simple. Even when the newer versions of winamp started playing video files, you could still slap it down and tell it to only play audio files.. and even if it was capable of organizing your "media library" it never required you to even open the media library screen. If you wanted a program that had a "play" and a "stop" button on it and that's it, Winamp could do that for you, and it wouldn't BS you with trying to sell you albums that you already own the MP3's for.

So, why am I telling you guys all this? Because I'm going to review a new Winamp, and I wanted to let you know the history of it all.

Yesterday, the version of Winamp installed on my computer was Winamp 2.76, which was released in 2001. The version installed on my computer today is version 5.54.. quite an upgrade.

My biggest fear was that Winamp would attempt to assimilate all of my media files into a media library and want to "manage" those files for me. I was also afraid that Winamp had become a "eat your entire screen" program with all sorts of features that you'd never ever use, but still had no choice but to accept. Features like the "music browser" which constantly loads webpages based on the name of the MP3 file you are playing (and never finds anything you didn't already know).

I'm glad to report that I was only half-right. The default installation will give you a full-screen eating monster that contains information and features you don't care about.. but you can turn it off. It also has a "now playing data" window and a playlist editor.. but you can turn those off, too. In fact, if you wanted, you could strip all that garbage out entirely and it would look and function just like the old Winamp that didn't suck.

However, in my experimentation, I discovered 2 new features I actually liked! First of all, the new Winamp gives you more data about the MP3 file you're listening to. It doesn't try to go on the internet and fetch this data (and fail at it) it pulls the data from the MP3's ID tags, and the result looks something like this:

The album's art, year, album name and soforth were not previously visible using Winamp. That screenshot is the extent of the Winamp that I have configured for myself. It doesn't have visualizations or spectrograms or anything.. it just shows me what I want to see, and that's it.

The other feature that this new Winamp has is pretty cool, it sticks a little bug in the corner of the screen whenever a new song begins, telling you what the new song is and giving you the album info:

This is a feature I would really like when working on the desktop, but I don't want it popping up when I'm playing LOTRO or something.. and it won't! Winamp sees when the computer is in fullscreen mode, and it doesn't put the display up! The best of both worlds!

Of course, you could just as easily configure it not to put that up, or change the corner it displays in.. you can even tell it how you want it to appear.

So, I'm glad I tried out the new Winamp, I'd recommend it to all you music lovers out there who aren't stuck with iTunes. You can get it at http://www.winamp.com . In order to get all the special sauces, you need to install the "Bento Theme" which comes with the program.

Overall Score: 8 of 10

Mega Jugs
Submitted Sunday, February 1, 2009 - 12:40:58 PM by Klaitu

The Colonel is a crafty opponent. Sure, he's got all 11 herbs and spices in his arsenal.. and he's got the chicken. He's got the biscuits. He's got the little parfaits.

The Colonel was not content with these devastating culinary weapons. Actually, he has devised the only vessel capable of containing enough fluids to wash the rest of it down..

The KFC Mega Jug. Behold!

1/2 gallon of your choice of carbonated beverage. The container is frightening enough if you were to imagine it filled with Pepsi, but what if it were filled with Mountain Dew?

It's a scientific fact that Mountain Dew is the perfect companion beverage to KFC.. and this amount of Mountain Dew surely has never been concentrated into one place before.

You may have noticed that the Mega Jug has a handle on it. you might think the handle is ridiculous, but you must realize that a half-gallon of Mountain Dew weighs over 4 pounds.

I was as shocked as anyone when I first saw the Mega Jug. I was thirsty and I saw "mega" on the menu and just assumed that KFC had started calling their mediums large, and their larges mega. I was unprepared for the Mega Jug, which coincidentally won't fit into any cup holder you've ever seen.

As I consumed my Fried Chicken and washed it down with a seemingly endless supply of Mountain Dew, I began to get curious about the Mega Jug. Could one man really drink this much soda without passing out? Does anyone make a straw long enough to reach the bottom of the jug?

It turns out that I had an old straw from Sonic, and the Sonic straw WAS capable of reaching the deepest depths of the Dew. It only took me 6 hours to take down the Mega Jug.. and it wasn't long before I started getting curious again.

How many cans of soda can you fit into the Mega Jug? Can one man really drink 2 Mega Jugs worth of soda without passing out?

As it turns out, you can fit "almost 4" cans of soda into a Mega Jug, depending on if you put ice in there and how much.. however, I am of the mind that one man cannot drink an entire gallon of soda from the Mega Jug.

I gave it a good try, but near the end I just couldn't take any more down. There physically wasn't any more room in my stomach. Whenever I moved around I would slosh. In the end, I couldn't finish the last 1/8 of the Mega Jug. It sat there, mocking me. I told myself to man up and suck down the rest of it, but alas, I could not. I had so much soda that I just wanted to curl up into a ball and groan until it digested.

In the end, the KFC Mega Jug is both a blessing and a curse. Yes, it delivers a generous bounty of fresh Mountain Dew, but don't stare directly into the Colonel's eyes don't listen when he says "Fill it up again, you can do it, I made the Mega Jug just for you!"

It's a trap! Your stomach can't repel soda of that magnutude!