SNL Shia LeBeouf: Dear Sister

Theatrical Cuts vs Director’s Cuts

Article discussing the different versions of Brazil, Payback, Kingdom of Heaven, Leon, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Mr. Arkadin, Daredevil, Apocalypse Now, Alexander, Superman II, and Blade Runner.

Second Life is a complete waste of time.

It finally hit me. I had to read the comments left by these diggers to realize that there really is no point to second life. I thought that it might interesting to build objects because I've always been interested in CG/3D Animation. What was I thinking? These guys are absolutely right. It's nonsense. Now that I think about it, the graphics do suck, the laggy connections don't help either. The world is dominated by furries (anthropomorphic animals), cybersex freaks (scary), and the few who were there buying virtual land during the land rush. I agree, the major corporations ARE just trying to be cool and the SL is just one big over-hyped 3d chat. I guess I got caught up in the hype.

God, before I waste any more time with it, I'm going to remove it from my PC.

Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds


Businessweek.com has posted an article about the Virtual World Gold Rush which details the growing popularity and the resulting business opportunities of various online virtual world's.

What do the virtual world's offer to advertisers?
Due to their appeal to adolescents, virtual world's offer a direct link for advertisers to market to the prized teen demographic.

Traffic to these sites continue to grow exponentially.

... consultancy Gartner (IT) predicts that 80% of active Internet users will join a virtual world by the end of 2011.

A short list of virtual world's

Club Penguin (kids)
http://www.clubpenguin.com/
(new horizon interactive)

Webkinz (kids)
http://www.webkinz.com/index.html
(ganz)

RuneScape (teen/gaming)
http://runescape.com/

World of Warcraft (teen/gaming)
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/index.xml
(blizzard)

Second Life (teen/adult)
http://secondlife.com/
(linden labs)

Habbo (teen)
http://www.habbo.com/
(sulake)

There (teen)
http://there.com/
(Makena Technologies)

Playdo (teen)
http://playdo.com/eng/munity.asp

Worlds (teen/adult)
http://www.worlds.com/

Virtual Magic Kingdom (kids)
http://vmk.disney.go.com/vmk/en_US/index?name=VMKHomePage
(disney)

Weblo
http://www.weblo.com/
(Oak Investment)

Virtual MTV (teens)
http://www.m80teams.com/register/index3.html?virtualmtv
(viacom)

Coming Soon:

PlayStation Home
(sony)

Wildflower Arts & Music Festival

It was fun. I saw Morris Day and The Time, The Original Family Stone, and a few minutes of Grand Funk Railroad.

Second Life Part 2

I had briefly played around with SL last summer to see what all the buzz was about. Initially, I was very impressed, though I didn't do much more than explore the different islands of the virtual world. I was a little disturbed by what was going on with some of the "residents". There were areas that allowed you to purchase strange objects and animations that I can only assume were intended to be used for cybersex. That immediately ruined it for me and I uninstalled it. Why invest so much time in something that would be used for that? It wasn't the only thing going on, but it existed throughout.

I have since read more articles about Second Life and the potential for business and marketing. After installing SL again, I noticed the graphics engine seems a bit improved. The orientation area where you begin is much easier to interact with and to navigate. This has renewed my interest in SL and its potential.

I need to find the time to learn more on how to build and texture 3D objects and animations in SL. This requires a premium account which I'm not quite sure I'm ready to pay for. It could be interesting to start a consulting business that would help companies use SL as an opportunity to promote their goods and services.

Some of the High profile brands with a presence in Second Life (April 2007):

(View as Map)

Warner Bros
Cnet
Fox Atomic
Intel
Sun
Pontiac
Comcast
Laguna Beach
NBC
One Manchester
IBM
Addidas
Reebok
AOL
Dell
Weather Channel
AMD
Nissan
BMW
American Apparel
Colorado Tech
Ohio University
MIT
Cornell
Princeton
University of Minnesota
Mercedes
University of Herts
University of Oxford
Logica
UNC
Toyota
movietickets.com
Philips
STA Travel
Autodesk
ING Renault F1
Cisco
Murray State
Woodbury University
Telus
Unitrin
University of S Denmark

Right Where It Belongs

See the animal in his cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs

[Chorus:]
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees

[Chorus:]
What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you want it to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

New Order 1981-2007

I was just reading an article about New Order breaking up. I guess it's not really that much of a surprise as they passed their prime many years ago. However, I admit that I liked 2005's Waiting for the Siren's Call. It had a few tracks that reminded me of older New Order.

Before they were New Order, they were Joy Division("Atmosphere") led by Ian Curtis. After his death the remaining members reformed as New Order. After much success in the 80's, the members of New Order decided that they each would try something new through side projects. I enjoyed Electronic, Bernard Sumner's collaboration with Johnny Marr (The Smiths) and Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys). Their first singles, "Getting Away With It" and "Get the Message", were an immediate success when they debuted in December 1989. Subsequent albums, like Raise the Pressure, were never able to gain as much notoriety or radio play, possibly due to such a huge gap in their releases. People forgot who they were, and the music scene changed. Raise the Pressure was a let down and I still prefer their first album when I'm in the mood for Electronic.

While Sumner was working on Electronic, the other member's of New Order were pursuing their own endeavors. Peter Hook created the band Revenge and in the late 90's, Monaco("What Do You Want From Me"). While maybe not as successful as Bernard or Peter, The Other Two members of New Order released their own album, The Other Two and You in 1994 featuring "Selfish". Of all of the side projects, Electronic was probably the most successful. However, nothing comes close to New Order when they were at their best.

New Order Discography

Side Projects:
Electronic
Revenge
The Other Two

Covers:
List of bands that covered New Order songs

Over the last decade at Yahoo...

I can remember a conversation with my dad years ago, before the dot com bust. He and I were talking about Yahoo and what a great company it was. We talked about someone that I knew that worked for the company and how lucky they were to work for a company whose stock was worth so much. Yahoo was one of the reasons that I decided to get into web design and eventually pursue a career in web development. But the party ended in 2001 and how times have changed.

What is going on at Yahoo?

Since the dot com bubble burst seven years ago it seems as though Yahoo has continued to lose ground in many areas. Yahoo's search engine has slid to 27.5% ( March 2007) of total searches. Today they announced that they were closing down Yahoo Photos, and Yahoo Auctions in the US and Canada. In July of 2006, when word of the delay of their advertising platform Panama was publicized, the result sent the stock to a 52 Week low.

Since July 2006 when Yahoo had 28.5% of the search market, Google has continued to chip away at Yahoo's dwindling share of the search pie. Today when you tell someone you are going to search for something you don't say that you are yahoo'ing something, you say that you are going to google it. Ironically, Yahoo helped Google when Google was still in its infant stages.

It's hard to believe that in 1999, executives at Yahoo negotiated a deal worth 5.7 Billion for Mark Cuban's money-losing Broadcast.com website and services. Yahoo's aim was that by purchasing Broadcast.com, Yahoo would stay ahead of it's competitors in the emerging audio and video business. A few years later, Yahoo acquired Launch Media to further bolster their dominance in streaming audio and video. Nowadays, when you think of streaming audio, do you think of Yahoo's services or do you use Itunes? When you think of online video, do you think of Yahoo Video or do you go to YouTube? Besides the few dominant players, there are thousands of other competitors offering audio, video, and podcasts. Yahoo is nothing more than one of many. With YouTube dominating online video I'm wondering what happened with broadcast.com? Yahoo has had seven years to build broadcast.com into something huge but haven't. Instead you'll be hard pressed to find anything left of broadcast.com.



With Yahoo Launch executives leaving and rumors of an impending sell of Launch, I wonder exactly what direction Yahoo is going with audio and video. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Yahoo over the next year.

Related:

Wikipedia entry for Broadcast.com

Announcement of acquisition of Broadcast.com

Announcement of acquisition of Launch Media

Announcement of Google's acquisition of YouTube

Where does broadcast.com point to now?

Spinal Tap is Back!

Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.


View Video

Spinal Tap is

David St. Hubbins, Singer
Nigel Tufnel, Guiater
Derek Smalls, Bassist

Spinal Tap Discography

Joost Invitation

If you are interested in beta testing Joost leave your email in the comments section.

What is Joost?
The software, which is based on a peer-to-peer model, is no longer in a private beta test, according to a release from the company. Existing beta testers, who now need to upgrade to a new version of the program, can invite an unlimited number of people to download the Joost console.

Joost, the video-on-demand program created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, announced its commercial launch on Tuesday.

UPDATE 5/2 8:30pm c.s.t.: I have sent out a few invites.

The San Diego Trip

Views from Pacific Terrace Hotel- Pacific Beach





Trip was alright. The hotel room was kickass. I had a High Def 42"+ tv in the room to watch the mavs game. At night, as the temperature dipped below 70 degrees, I opened the sliding glass door to the balcony and slept to the sound of waves crashing along the beach. The weather was beautiful and sunny as you can see from the photos. Since parking was difficult to locate, I opted to pay the $18/day and park in the garage so I wouldn't have to worry about it. The staff at the hotel was nice and helpful. I would definitely stay at this place if I wanted to be on the beach in San Diego.

Ate at mostly cheap places - Mama Testo's located in the Hillcrest/SDSU area, and also The Cheese Shop in La Jolla. I had read some reviews that mentioned both places were worth checking out.

What I realized though was that it's really too expensive to live out there. It would be a great place to start your career at in your 20s, but I'm not so sure that it's worth it now that I am single and don't make friends easily. That and having to worry about using retirement and savings to get out there make it not so attractive.

I looked at two different apartment complexes. One was $1350 and another that was located near Qualcomm stadium was $1525. Between pet deposits, security deposits, and rent it was just going to cost too much. The realization that I would be starting over in such an expensive city also began to set in. It's not going to happen. I won't be moving to SD for now.

Not bad for a free trip.

Digg & the HD-DVD processing key

The website digg.com is a social news website. The stories are ranked higher whenever users digg the articles or lower if a user clicks the bury article link. This works most of the time. But what happens when the story promotes illegal activity?

Sometime on Tuesday someone posted the HD-DVD processing key that can be used to circumvent copy protection on HD-DVDs. The corporations behind HD-DVD had to have been angry over this. DIGG editors were not impressed either and quickly removed the article even though the users of Digg had recommended the story to the frontpage.

What was the user response? Take a look.


Update: A lot of the online tech sites have picked up on this story. There are currently 152 articles about this.