It's become a bit of a cliche to say that something made you "throw up in your mouth a little", but over at Blog Of Hilarity, this headline made me throw up in my mouth a little: Porn company wants Susan Boyle. Anybody who could be aroused by that needs a psychiatric evaluation. Immediately.
Not to knock her, but I also find it incredibly amusing the big deal everybody is making over this woman, making her an "unexpected viral video sensation". I guess everybody forgot that about two years ago, the exact same show had another contestant that did the exact same thing. Some average fat guy (I think he was a cab driver? Can't be bothered to check.) busted out an amazing rendition of an opera tune and surprised the judges and that video was everywhere. Some cynics might argue that they're attempting to recreate that to boost ratings. I imagine this lady will enjoy her fifteen minutes (and good for her, at least she can sing) and disappear just like the guy did. Maybe she'll have a modest career and make a few records, but the mainstream attention will be gone and forgotten pretty quickly if history is any indication.
Is tax-free internet shopping soon to be a thing of the past? I've been expecting this to happen for a long time. Of course, the common sense arguement against this is that when you buy something in another state your own state doesn't get any sales tax out of it, so why should online be any different? (Although, technically, you are supposed to report and pay taxes on things you buy online or physically purchase out of state, it's just that virtually nobody ever does it.) Anyway, taxing online purchases sucks, but it'll probably go through.
ISP download caps not dead, but ought to be. I'm glad to see people voicing their displeasure about the ISPs that are trying to stifle the internet and new and innovative uses of it. Of course, the reality is that the outcry has probably only slowed the caps. (Let's face it, cable companies don't want people to use the internet to watch video, especially legally. It'll cut into their profits and control over what people watch.)
STAR TREK aims younger, sells out. Not really a surprise, is it? They want a more mainstream audience, so they got a mainstream director. They had to know that fans of the original show would be hesitant at best about a remake. Most of the old-timers gave the announcement of a remake a hostile reception. As distasteful as that might be to some people, it's a smart play on the part of the studio. Me, I've only ever been into the original crew and their adventures. I'm hoping to generally like the movie, but I fully expect to do more than my fair share of eye-rolling. (So far, the only things I'm sold on are the dead on impression of the original McCoy and the Nimoy appearance. New Kirk doesn't seem anywhere near as cool as Shatner, and reading that Scotty is getting some sort of CGI Jar Jar sidekick is worrysome. I also expect, since this is "modern" sci-fi, we'll be seeing some crying. Stoicism and being a bad-ass is apparently dead in sci-fi.)
Daily Complaints
Comedian Louis CK gets BitTorrent content removed by asking nicely. I find it interesting that he's more concerned with people getting the best quality stuff (instead of works in progress like he asked to have removed) than with "losing sales".
Why no one should be shocked by The Pirate Bay verdict. Basically, history has shown that whoever is the biggest name (Napster, Kazaa) is the biggest target. In the case of the Pirate Bay, by those guys openly mocking the copyright holders they made themselves a huge target.
The Pirate Bay speaks out: "The Site Will Live On!". Pretty much the expected outcome, and they're already working on trying to fight the guilty verdict they received in court last week. Pirate Bay founders file official appeal
Entertainment industry really really really wants to believe Pirate Bay verdict is a win. Clearly they haven't been paying attention over the last decade. Sure, on the surface they scored a victory (of sorts, considering the appeal) against a big name target. Who knows, that might even scare a few people. Really, that's what they could call a victory. Scaring off the average person from downloading. They know they can't eliminate it completely, but if they could push it back underground like it was a decade ago, and make it less mainstream again, they'd probably be happy with that.
IFPI site under attack by Pirate Bay supporters. This sort of thing, no matter how wretched organizations like the IFPI might be, isn't a good idea. All it does is make people who support filesharing out to be are hi-tech vandals.
Survey: UK has world's worst copyright laws - "by far". I'm actually surprised that they beat out the US in this survey.
Here's a great example of copyright gone wrong: Custom toy blogger accused of infringing on WOLVERINE. His web host was sent a DMCA notice and took down the content, and the kicker is, it had nothing to do with WOLVERINE. With copyright, it's become "guilty until proven innocent".
Video Games
FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS coming to consoles next year. This is an entire new game, not just downloadable content, which is what I expected it to be before I read the article.
Comparing FINAL FANTASY XIII demo on HDTV and analog TV. Obviously, it looked better on the HDTV. Also unsurprising was the revelation that Blu-Ray doesn't look much different from DVD on a standard def TV. (There is a huge difference on an HDTV.)
Release date announcement for STREET FIGHTER IV PC version coming May 1. An announcement for an announcement. Yeah, that really is as dumb as it sounds. At first glance, I thought that it meant the release date was May 1st, then when my brain caught up a half-second later, I was annoyed.
3 million kids are 'pathological gamers' ... apparently. How surprising. Heh. Honestly, virtually anything can be "addictive" to the right personality type. Sports, music, TV, porn, gambling, etc.
Not to knock her, but I also find it incredibly amusing the big deal everybody is making over this woman, making her an "unexpected viral video sensation". I guess everybody forgot that about two years ago, the exact same show had another contestant that did the exact same thing. Some average fat guy (I think he was a cab driver? Can't be bothered to check.) busted out an amazing rendition of an opera tune and surprised the judges and that video was everywhere. Some cynics might argue that they're attempting to recreate that to boost ratings. I imagine this lady will enjoy her fifteen minutes (and good for her, at least she can sing) and disappear just like the guy did. Maybe she'll have a modest career and make a few records, but the mainstream attention will be gone and forgotten pretty quickly if history is any indication.
Is tax-free internet shopping soon to be a thing of the past? I've been expecting this to happen for a long time. Of course, the common sense arguement against this is that when you buy something in another state your own state doesn't get any sales tax out of it, so why should online be any different? (Although, technically, you are supposed to report and pay taxes on things you buy online or physically purchase out of state, it's just that virtually nobody ever does it.) Anyway, taxing online purchases sucks, but it'll probably go through.
ISP download caps not dead, but ought to be. I'm glad to see people voicing their displeasure about the ISPs that are trying to stifle the internet and new and innovative uses of it. Of course, the reality is that the outcry has probably only slowed the caps. (Let's face it, cable companies don't want people to use the internet to watch video, especially legally. It'll cut into their profits and control over what people watch.)
STAR TREK aims younger, sells out. Not really a surprise, is it? They want a more mainstream audience, so they got a mainstream director. They had to know that fans of the original show would be hesitant at best about a remake. Most of the old-timers gave the announcement of a remake a hostile reception. As distasteful as that might be to some people, it's a smart play on the part of the studio. Me, I've only ever been into the original crew and their adventures. I'm hoping to generally like the movie, but I fully expect to do more than my fair share of eye-rolling. (So far, the only things I'm sold on are the dead on impression of the original McCoy and the Nimoy appearance. New Kirk doesn't seem anywhere near as cool as Shatner, and reading that Scotty is getting some sort of CGI Jar Jar sidekick is worrysome. I also expect, since this is "modern" sci-fi, we'll be seeing some crying. Stoicism and being a bad-ass is apparently dead in sci-fi.)
Daily Complaints
Comedian Louis CK gets BitTorrent content removed by asking nicely. I find it interesting that he's more concerned with people getting the best quality stuff (instead of works in progress like he asked to have removed) than with "losing sales".
Why no one should be shocked by The Pirate Bay verdict. Basically, history has shown that whoever is the biggest name (Napster, Kazaa) is the biggest target. In the case of the Pirate Bay, by those guys openly mocking the copyright holders they made themselves a huge target.
The Pirate Bay speaks out: "The Site Will Live On!". Pretty much the expected outcome, and they're already working on trying to fight the guilty verdict they received in court last week. Pirate Bay founders file official appeal
Entertainment industry really really really wants to believe Pirate Bay verdict is a win. Clearly they haven't been paying attention over the last decade. Sure, on the surface they scored a victory (of sorts, considering the appeal) against a big name target. Who knows, that might even scare a few people. Really, that's what they could call a victory. Scaring off the average person from downloading. They know they can't eliminate it completely, but if they could push it back underground like it was a decade ago, and make it less mainstream again, they'd probably be happy with that.
IFPI site under attack by Pirate Bay supporters. This sort of thing, no matter how wretched organizations like the IFPI might be, isn't a good idea. All it does is make people who support filesharing out to be are hi-tech vandals.
Survey: UK has world's worst copyright laws - "by far". I'm actually surprised that they beat out the US in this survey.
Here's a great example of copyright gone wrong: Custom toy blogger accused of infringing on WOLVERINE. His web host was sent a DMCA notice and took down the content, and the kicker is, it had nothing to do with WOLVERINE. With copyright, it's become "guilty until proven innocent".
Video Games
FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS coming to consoles next year. This is an entire new game, not just downloadable content, which is what I expected it to be before I read the article.
Comparing FINAL FANTASY XIII demo on HDTV and analog TV. Obviously, it looked better on the HDTV. Also unsurprising was the revelation that Blu-Ray doesn't look much different from DVD on a standard def TV. (There is a huge difference on an HDTV.)
Release date announcement for STREET FIGHTER IV PC version coming May 1. An announcement for an announcement. Yeah, that really is as dumb as it sounds. At first glance, I thought that it meant the release date was May 1st, then when my brain caught up a half-second later, I was annoyed.
3 million kids are 'pathological gamers' ... apparently. How surprising. Heh. Honestly, virtually anything can be "addictive" to the right personality type. Sports, music, TV, porn, gambling, etc.
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