Ryan Thomas Goodenough

It was a good day for Apple. The Macbook and Macbook Pro lines saw a good set of spec bumps, including a full multi-touch trackpad in the MacBook pros along with a 200 GB standard hard drive (that being said, if you don’t need all the extra power, the MacBook is quite the computer and quite the deal).

Additionally, Apple released the new firmware for the iPhone. Not much in term of content updates, but I think that this release was to get all the iPhones out there ready for the SDK and ensuing releases. Speaking of which, I think Steve Jobs said he’d get it out by February, so here’s hoping the next few days are fruitful!

This week’s free iTunes single, 11h30 by Danger, is an iTunes Plus single, which means you get excellent audio quality. With a track like this one (techno), it is absolutely essential.

I actually really like this genre of music, when done well. 11h30 packs a good beat and an interesting vocalist. At just a little over 3 minutes, it’s thankfully short. I’d prefer to see them do a little more with their drum kits throughout the song, but the end of the song finally gets most of it right. A nice breakdown precedes an appropriate abrupt ending (can you have a techno/dance song without an abrupt ending?).

C

While Emily, Kira, and I greatly enjoyed the Matchbox Twenty/Alanis Morissette concert we went to last night, it wasn’t perfect. Submitted for the court, evidence #1.

There was nothing really wrong with the acts; rather, there was a problem with the people. Specifically, the four drunk idiots in front of us. Not to say that people shouldn’t be allowed to drink at a concert, but everyone should follow these simple rules:

1. Thou shalt remain mostly quiet during the concert.
2. Thou shalt not stand up unless others have stood up.
3. Thou shalt be careful not to spill beer on other people.
4. Thou shalt not constantly make out during a performance.
5. Thou shalt not grope others in public.
6. Thou shalt never sing along so that others can hear thou.
7. Thou shalt not keep drinking beer if thou cannot hold it.
8. Thou shalt not use a cell phone more than 1 minute for every 2 hours of the show.
9. Thou shalt not yell/whistle/scream as if it is a sporting event.
10. Thou shalt never attend a concert if thou cannot follow the previously stated rules.

Is sounding like Avril Lavigne a good thing? I mean, I’ll be the first one to admit that I’ve enjoyed several of Avril’s singles. Her writing isn’t too bad and she knows how to craft a catchy song and an occasional good ballad. But a clone of Avril?

I Nine isn’t a pure clone, because I think there’s a little Michelle Branch and Kelly Clarkson thrown in for good measure. Still, I’m not sure if there’s anything too good here–the song is very familiar and pretty boring. I like this type of music just fine, but I don’t think this song is very good.

C

Well, that’s not surprising.

Following announcements that NetFlix would stop carrying HD DVDs and that Best Buy was going to start pushing BluRays (they had previously adopted a format-neutral stance), Toshiba announced today that they are giving up on the HD DVD format. This is a welcome sign for most, as format wars can often leave people confused and frustrated. As some of you may recall from my earlier post, I recommended the following:

Blu-Ray will most likely win the HD War, especially with the recent (January 5) switch of Warner Studios from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray. However, Blu-Ray players are still prohibitively expensive. My advice? Amazon.com has a great sale on HD-DVD players right now. You can get a good Toshiba (the inventor of the HD-DVD platform) HD-DVD player for under $200 plus 10 free HD-DVD movies valued at $20 a pop.

The HD-DVD player will upconvert your standard DVDs to HD-like quality (Blu-Ray does this too, but it is still an expensive alternative), you’ll get to see HD movies for cheap, and, if and when Blu-Ray wins, you’ll see huge clearances on HD-DVD movies. At that time, you can buy a Blu-Ray player that hopefully resolves some of the slow load times associated with current Blu-Ray players and use your HD-DVD player as a good, HD movie player in another room.

I still think this was good advice, because those HD DVDs are going to go on sale soon. And, for those of you who took up this advice, you now have an upconverting DVD player. Add a cheaper Blu Ray in a couple months, and you should be very happy with your purchases. Of course, seeing that Blu Rays still sell for about $30 a movie, you may just want to stick with DVDs until the price really comes down.

When Cho Seung-Hi shot students at Virginia Tech, I wrote a post about how gun control is needed:

I’m not arguing that a few people wouldn’t be able to get their hands on illegal guns each year. But if such a law was passed, monitoring these sales would be much easier. It could lead to prevention of crimes like that which took place at Virginia Tech.

I received a comment by “butch” that stated:

- I’m not arguing that a few people wouldn’t be able to get their hands on illegal guns each year. -

You win the small cranium award…

The news broke tonight that Stephen Kazmierczak had bought accessories for his guns from the same online retailer that Cho Seung-Hi had bought one of his guns. Both purchases were made legally. I know that people subscribe to the idea that “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people”, but guns kill people too. Restricting the number of guns available on the market will reduce the number of gunshot deaths. It won’t completely prevent incidents like this, but I’m tired of the arguments against gun control. And by “gun control,” I mean no guns. I don’t care about waging a war against the Government. Nor do I think that hunters need handguns or semi-automatic weapons. Something has to change–we’re too advanced and successful of a country to be as stupid as we are being.

The University just sent us an email about the Northern Illinois incident:

Dear UAlbany Students:

…

* The Middle Earth Hotline (442-5777) offers free and anonymous peer assistance to students. The hotline is open from 12 noon to 12 midnight Monday through Thursday and 24 hours a day on weekends when classes are in session.

I appreciate the sentiment in this email, but I couldn’t help but be extremely curious at one point. Middle Earth hotline? No, it’s not a joke. Do you think they ever read Tolkien? Weird…

It just seems that if you truly want to offer people a hotline for help, then it might be worth finding a name that doesn’t invoke images of goblins, ogres, and wizards.

Yeah, this is pretty dorky, but for you’ll probably get some of the references. Ah, the problem of finding the “right job,” especially if you’re typecast.

As requested by Chris:

“A little more notice please, a lot of us work full time and have to schedule things in advance.”

I’m always annoyed that some people think that the world revolves around them. This particular individual thought it was necessary to write in (rudely) and complain about the timing of a free newsletter that PASA sends out to students. Of course, we had mentioned the free event of which he was complaining well in advance. But instead of looking in his deleted folder for verification, “Billy” thought it was necessary to write a jerky email about something that he was way off base on. It seems that some people just like to complain about everything*.

*So says the person who has a regular post called “People who should be sent to Mars.”