Kurt's Thoughts

UPDATE 10/24/2006:
Whoa.  This whole thing about YouTube tacitly allowing the publication of copyrighted video content just got a LOT more interesting.  Why? 

YouTube/Google just gave a movie studio the name and details of one of its users to Paramount Pictures to file a lawsuit against.

That’s right.  Apparently the DMCA protects YouTube/Google for prosecution.  But it sure as hell doesn’t protect anyone that posts copyrighted content.  Remember – now that YouTube is part of Google, Google is effectively "turning over it’s users" for prosecution. 

Ars Technica writes:

MarketWatch says that "YouTube’s decision to help Paramount track down Moukarbel stands in stark contrast to the philosophy of Google, which has fought the U.S. Justice Department over attempts to access data about consumers who use its search services." The author all but comes out and calls upon YouTube to fight such subpoenas—just like Google did! Unfortunately, the two cases are so dissimilar as to invalidate the comparison.

When Google fought to keep its users’ search information private, it was not being served DMCA subpoenas. No copyright violation had taken place. That case, in fact, was about pornography, and people’s access to it. The subpoenas were also issued by the US government, not by the copyright holder. In fact, it’s difficult to see why the comparison was even made in the first place, except for the fact that Google just bought YouTube; mentioning the two companies in the same sentence is apparently required now, even when it makes no sense.
(http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061024-8060.html)

In an elogquently put conclusion, Ars Technica writes that, "The real surprise here is how much idealism YouTube has inspired in people, people who convinced themselves that ripping off a script to a major Hollywood film and releasing a different version onto the Internet was somehow a legitimate venture, and that YouTube would stand up for the right to do it. They did not. It doesn’t mean that they sold out or "went corporate" (all of this happened before Google was interested). It simply means they followed the law."

Sounds like some users of YouTube seriously need to "check themselves".

——————–

UPDATE 10/23/2006:
Steve Ballmer, in a conversation with BusinessWeek, nailed this on the head, and while a skeptic might say that he’s "anti-Google" biased, I’d be interested in someone contesting the accuracy of his statements.  Here’s a few choice quotes from the article:

Steve Ballmer on the value of YouTube:

[You’ve got to ask] could Google do whatever it is they’re hoping to buy without paying $1.6 billion? Is YouTube really some permanent, long-term thing, or is it a fashion? I’m not saying it is a fashion. But every time we do valuations, I wonder if we can afford to keep this hot for 10 years. I’m sure somebody at Google has got to do the same analysis, because even $1.6 billion is more than 1% of their market cap.

Is there a business model? Right now, there’s no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion. And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that’s up there is owned by somebody else.

And here’s a choice quote that everyone’s talking about on Google’s usage of funds:

“The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are all threatened by Google. Why? Because basically Google is telling you how much of your ad revenue you get to keep.  They better get some competition.  Us.  Yahoo!.  Somebody better break through or you can short all media stocks right now. As long as there are two, you can hold onto media stocks.”

FULL ARTICLE:  http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2006/tc20061011_940241.htm?campaign_id=bier_tco.g3a.rss1011a

——————–
ORIGINAL POST 10/20/2006:

Mark Cuban has taken a lot of heat for stating something along the lines that "Anyone that buys YouTube is an idiot" but everyone knows deep down that he’s right.

For the folks that haven’t figured it out, YouTube wasn’t viewed as worth suing prior to it’s acquisition by Google.  After all, they really didn’t have any money – they were a start up that happened to make a lot of money by having users voluntarily break the law and upload other people’s intellectual property.

And let’s not kid ourselves:  This is the reason YouTube really has been as popular as it is.  For every "Free Hugs" video or legitimately published video that owners effectively released their IP rights by publishing the content online, there are 100’s of videos that are the property of other companies and individuals that never authorized it’s distribution, and it’s these videos that really draws people to YouTube.  From Weird Al Yankovic’s "White & Nerdy" video to the "Bill Gates’ Napoleon Dynamite" sketch… all of this stuff draws viewers and all this stuff is protected by copyright.  And this copyright is being violated.

But there really wasn’t much room to every litigate against YouTube.  After all, there wasn’t much money to be had.

Follow the money
Until Google acquired them.

Now, with YouTube’s valuation sitting at $1.6B through its acquisition and its parent company, Google, having a market capitalization of $139 BILLION DOLLARS, it becomes very attractive to target YouTube’s IP rights violations and attempt to quantify the losses associated with illegally posted IP rights violations.

Witness the first major culling of content from YouTube:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061020-8038.html

As more professionally-developed or privately-held content that is posted on YouTube is contested, YouTube will be seen as a more and more restrictive location for "sharing" content that people want and content pirates will move on to other illicit locations on the web.

Napster Redux
Gee – this sounds a lot like Napster doesn’t it?

While some might argue that "independent publishing" is still very valuable and how people get good small production types (kids with webcams for example) can get some exposure.  I’m sorry but of the millions upon millions of multimedia posts out there on YouTube, I’ve found personally that only a small subset of the independent videos out there are really "golden" relative to the rest of the garbage posted.  And trying to find those "gold nuggets" is getting harder and harder.  And boy… there are just some people that shouldn’t be allowed to own webcams.

Of course this is all subjective but the proof will be in the pudding:  If viewership drops off of YouTube, and if publishers stop using YouTube in deference to Putfile and other multimedia publishing services that aren’t placed under the same level of scrutiny as YouTube is right now, then you can bet that there are a lot of other people that feel the same way as I do.

This past Sunday, Anne and I spent the day with Save-a-Life Pet Adoptions, a animal rescue organization that we originally got Sheepa, our dog, from.  (http://www.sheepa.com)

You see, every weekend, Anne & I work from 2PM-7PM at a PetCo where Save-a-Life brings their dogs and cats.   Ever since we adopted Sheepa a year ago, we’ve been volunteering there to help get other dogs adopted and take care of their needs.  On the average, they bring 6 or 7 dogs to show while at PetCo and we seem to get about 2 of them adopted a day, which is quite good considering that there’s not a lot of traffic going through PetCo.

So Sunday was a big day.  Thousands of people were coming to see the 65 different adoption organizations that were setting up shop to showcase their adoptable dogs.  We were to bring 12 dogs and an unknown number of cats (I work with the dogs so I don’t know much about the cat side which is completely separated from the dog side.) to help find them homes.

TED’S TRIATHLON IN THE MORNING
The problem was that I had to support my friend Ted in the morning.  Why?  He was doing another Triathlon – only his second in his life.  This one was in Redondo Beach and frankly looked like a real bitch because the surf was pretty strong and the bike run was sort of uphill initially which is really tough when you’re just coming off a long swim.  In fact, while I was watching the swim, I saw 2-3 guys fall out of the race just after hitting the water and trying to get through the breaking surf.  It was that strong.  Ted said that he’d swallowed a fair amount of water getting through the swim.

In any case, the triathlon required me to be up by 5:00AM and he finished up by 9:00AM which left me enough time to get to the fair with my wife along with the 6 dog cages we had in the back of our BMW Convertible.  (The fact that we drove up to the event’s unloading area in a BMW Convertible with the cages was a funny thing in it of itself but I’ll write about that at another date.)

GETTING STARTED
After we got set up, it was time to turn on the sales… uhhh… I mean the adoption charm.  Over a period of 4 hours we proceeded to get 7 of our dogs adopted, breaking the original record of 6 dogs from our last Best Friends Super Adoption.  Most of the dogs were the 5 remaining lab shepherd puppies that we had had trouble getting adopted – primarily because our hunting grounds for adoption families is in an area that is dominated by condo complexes and apartments, where larger dogs like our puppies wouldn’t be as welcome.

Not so at this gig though.  The puppies went one by one to new families… and to REALLY GOOD adoptive families too.  We had one NBC Programming Executive… a couple Registered Nurses… a couple lawyers… a TV Station Marketing Executive… and a family with 6 occupants where someone would be home all the time.  A great group of families indeed and it was great to see the puppies go before they were "no longer puppies" and lost their "cuteness advantage" with the public.

That was the good news… but the "glass is half empty" part of the day was that there were still 5 dogs that went unadopted… and these were the 5 that REALLY needed adopting.  That’s sort of what this blog entry is about.  I’ve got photos of almost every remaining dog that still needs homes.

A WORD ABOUT BEST FRIENDS
Incidentally, I have the utmost admiration for the people at Best Friends.  I keep looking for some indicator that they’re not all "honey & roses" and that there is something somehow wrong with the organization (call it the skeptic in me) but these folks are absolutely phenomenal.  They have coordinated help, they have great leadership, they fund so much of the assistance at the event… and they manage to remain 100% positive about everything.

And that’s a huge thing:  100% positivity.  I can’t say that I’m like that because that requires the tolerance of a saint.  The forgiveness of the Amish.  The steadfast smile of Pollyanna.  However it’s totally the right way to go about things.  They never bring up the petty arguments between adoption organizations, they never complain about the abuses animals have, they never put the call out to "damn" anyone doing evil in the animal kingdom.  All they do is concentrate on the positive aspects of animal adoption and animal care and keep things from deteriorating into angry fighting and finger pointing.  (If you want an example of this, read their free online magazine at http://www.bestfriends.org – it’s so amazingly uplifting because of it’s positive nature, you can’t help but feel good when you read it.  It also comes in physical magazine form if you want to subscribe to it or you make a significant donation to the organization.

The dog’s names are in this order:

• Shams the Terrier
  (http://www.sheepa.org/friends/shams.htm for more information on Shams)
• Cowboy the unknown dog
• SusieQ the Pointer
• Cookie the Boxer

If you are interested in adopting any of these animals please contact Save-a-Life Adoptions at http://www.save-a-life.org or email info@save-a-life.org.

OMG.  Some of you know I love Vegas.  Las Vegas is the greatest escape on the planet.  I’m treated like a king, I reside and sleep in the best accommodations, I’m provided service and selection like no other place on the planet.  And for the most part, I’m not expected to pay for a damned thing.  And being a chowhound, there are very few places where I think you can get a better meal and even fewer where you can remain entertained for the rest of the evening after dinner.

One of my heroes is Steve Wynn, Las Vegas casino magnate.  Say what you want about Steve Wynn and his history with the Mirage and his back and forth with Kirk Kerkorian.  While most wealthy folks are stodgy, engrossed in business, and overly-focused on competing, very few people on the planet have the spirit, entrepreneurship, intellect, "gumption", and… oh yeah… money that Steve Wynn has.  Think Sir Richard Branson.  That’s sort of what I think of when I think "Steve Wynn".

So I say with great respect and admiration that I absolutely laughed my ass off when I heard about this story.

STEVE ELBOWS A PAINTING
Apparently, the story goes that Steve Wynn was about to execute the sale of "Le Reve", one of his most famous painting by Picasso.  He was in front of an audience talking about various paintings that he had in his collection I guess, and during the process of discuss the painting "Le Reve", the very painting that was about to be sold, he accidentally elbowed it. 

HARD.

Yep.   It was said that the painting has sold in 1997 for $48.4 million dollars before Steve Wynn purchased it and it doesn’t seem to be disclosed what he bought it for but I’ve heard $139 million dollars.  And he was about to sell it.

RIIIIIPPPP.

His elbow punctured the painting and there was an audible rip the sailed across the room.  It was dead center on Marie-Thérèse Walter’s left forearm and produced a 2 inch tear.  He even stuck his pinky in through the painting to verify that his elbow had really gone all the way through.

Silence.

Steve apparently suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa which makes it difficult for him to judge distances.  Apparently the distance between his elbow and the paint was an example of an "object that was closer that it appeared".  So with everyone looking at him and the damage he’d done… with a room full of people staring on in uncomfortable silence, what did Steve say in response to his actions?

"I can’t believe I just did that.  Oh, shit.  Oh… man."

He then turned to his guests and said, "Well, I’m glad I did it and not you." Then he went on his business, talking about the other paintings that he’d been describing throughout the night.  He didn’t throw a fit.  He didn’t overly curse after throwing the "$40M elbow".  (Hell – give the man a break.  If you just seriously damaged $139 million dollars in front of a room of people all staring at the painting, you’d be pretty pissed too.)  He just calmly moved forward.

OH, THE HILARITY
I guess that’s what I found so hilarious.  It’s such a foreign perspective to have… the ability to take a bad situation… one so colossally bad that any of us would have been reduced to Jello if we were in the same situation… and just forget about it.

I pride myself in the ability to refocus when things go wrong.  I see so many of our more junior (and some senior) employees just go ape-s#$% on stage when things go wrong.  When a LiveMeeting session won’t start because the Internet connection’s not working and they didn’t plan ahead for just such a catastrophy… when a demo fails and they can’t get anything working… when a presentation computer locks up leaving them without a Powerpoint deck to go off of… that’s when experience comes into play.  That’s when professionality and objectivity are best demonstrated.

But man.  If I ripped a $139 million dollar painting, I’d seriously crap my pants.  Like a deer in the headlights, I’d squeal like a pig, and quickly exit stage right.  Or left.  Or whatever.  But when you’re Steve Wynn, a multi-billionaire hotel & casino mogul, not only is $139 million really not that big a deal, the embarrassment and action of wrecking a treasure is really what’s at stake here.

Even in situations of sheer panic, everything’s relative.

MORE HERE:  http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061023ta_talk_paumgarten

Battlestar Galactica has jumped the shark.

Y’know that expression that’s always on Chloe’s face in "24"?  The look where her forehead is crinkled and she looks like she’s thinking, "WTF?", "You annoy me", and "Why are you wasting my time? all at once?

That’s the expression I had on my face throughout the entire episode.

I watched through all 2 hours of the Season Premiere and between Starbuck’s mystery baby and the supposed execution of Mary McDonnell & Richard Hatch’s characters (Oooh – I wonder if they survive?!? <feh>) I all but was ready to hurl.

It seems that Battlestar Galactica has changed writers or something because next to the "everyone got married on the planet" plotlines and "we’re going to torture everyone to intimidate the audience" subtext, it seems they don’t have a single original idea left in their pens.

Oooh.  Starbuck’s married, has a baby, and is now becoming domesticated.

Awww.  Apollo’s married, is now something of a slacker, and now has a gut bigger than mine.

Huh?  Cali lost her baby and is miraculously freed.

Booo!  Baltar is faced with the timelessly unoriginal "sign-this-or-else" dilemma.

What?  The rebels "crack the jamming frequencies" of the Cylons.

Jeez.  Cylons are now arguing and shooting each other.

I swear, I was almost happy that at the end of the premier, it looked like everyone was gonna get shot execution style.  Probably to put them out of their misery from this horrific story.  I swear to God, it’s so bad, I’m expecting a "Dallas-style" conclusion next week when Jamie Bamber/Apollo wakes up from a horrific nightmare and everything that transpired over the premier episode was a dream.

The solitary confinement bit is getting redundant after Colonel Tye got his eye plucked out. Every storyline seems unsurprising, derivative, and unoriginal. And strangely enough, even with all the "been-there-seen-that" plotlines, nothing seemed "believable", which was the hallmark (in my mind at least) of the series. The combination of the original story plus touches like the handheld camera shots in space and the realistic physics of the Vipers made it at least somewhat possible that this could be real. (Although that whole "firewall" bullsh-t from season 2 really threw me out of sync with the show for a few episodes. I’m surprised the "firewall" didn’t have Cisco-branding on it.)

But I was so hyped for the show that I kinda forgave most of the horrible story… up until the Baltar-must-sign-this-directive incident and which point, I started reading my football insider subscription at BruinBlitz.com, because it was more entertaining than the episode.

Oh, come on.  How can you pass this baby up?  It’s a self-stirring coffee cup powered by 2 AAA batteries.  Push the button, and it stirs your coffee for you.  $30.

Not impressed yet?  It comes in a set of 2 mugs for $30.

Still not impressed?  It runs at 3,000RPM.  That’s right.  It’s approaching the speed of your laptop’s lousy hard drive.  This makes it easy to mix in hard to dissolve additives to your coffee like syrups, honey, and other things.

http://www.hammacher.com/publish/73062.asp?promo=hl_kitchen

Now, go buy one for your geek girlfriend or boyfriend.

Sigh.  I’m no fan of Budweiser.  There’s really no beverage that Budweiser makes that I like.  I’m more of a Beamish – Guinness – Bass kind-of-guy.  And my friend Tim, a beer connoisseur, hasn’t helped in that area either being that he abhors Budweiser along with most of the US’s mass manufacturered, what he calls, "piss water".

So it bugs me that I realllllllllllly like their Budweiser Select commercials.  I’m sure you’ve seen them.  They flash scenes from nightclubs and ultralounges around the world with trendy folks wearing hip threads and leather jammin’ to the sounds of the Chemical Brothers song, "Galvanize".

BUDWEISER:  The King of Commercials

This is a good commercial.  As a guy with sales experience that once lived that life, that’s a damned good commerical targetting exactly the right segment.  Granted, I’m biased being that I like the Chemical Brothers and frankly smouldering hotness in leather isn’t something you’ll see me protesting against, I know something about those folks affectionately called "urban connectors" and to be blunt these folks ACTUALLY DRINK BUDWEISER.

These are those folks that used hit spring break every year in college.  The ones that live in NoHo in a 2 person flat that spend more money at Kenneth Cole or Salvatore Ferragamo in a single day than at Ralphs all year, while working their way to partner at their father’s law firm.

I swear, these folks will drink anything – Corona, MGD, Coors – I’ve noticed that the beer brand doesn’t actually seem to matter.  "Heinies" are considered exotic to these folk.  It seems that as long as it has alcohol in it, and they’ve heard of the brand as being something everything else will drink, they’ll consume it.  I’ve even heard that the fact that the light watery color of American lite beers gives it an edge "because that way it doesn’t stain your dress if it gets spilled on you."  Bottom line is that getting a buzz with the opportunity to hook up in a live social scene is the priority – and let taste be damned.

Which is what makes this commercial so smart.  If you assume that these urban connector types will drink anything regardless of actual taste, and that these folks are more interested in subconcious brand recognition.  Aligning the beer’s symbol & name over and over and over again with the same environment, the same music, the same clothing, the same club-goers… it’s "alignment advertising".  Simple, easy "exposure through association" and they use their 30 seconds of TV time well.

V-DUB:  Volkwagen’s Advertising for the GTI

Now compare this with the "V-Dub" commercials featuring a German-accented guy dressed in white advertising the New Volkswagen GTI.  In the ads, they usually take some guy who’s tricked out his car, and basically smash it on TV using a large crate that gets dropped on it, a catapult/trebuchet that hurls it overhead,  then introduces a white GTI as an alternative "hip" car.

The target, contrary to what one might think, are individuals that "see tricked out cars, don’t own one, but would like to buy one that it fairly cool, and off-the-shelf hip".  The car is presented as a clean, stylish automobile for the younger set, and to some degree they succeed.  They poke fun at the "Japanese rice-rocket", chrome rimmed, big muffler, overcharged, whale-tailed, pimp-my-ride set, while giving viewers a "refined" choice to go with.

So you might say, "What’s the difference?"  They’re doing the same thing as the Budweiser commercial.  They’re aligning themselves with an audience that doesn’t have a tricked out car, and would like to buy something a little more "in"… a little more hip. 

The problem is, the commercial was played during the Baltimore Ravens vs San Diego Chargers football game.  If you’re watching the Ravens beat the Chargers in the final 34 seconds of the 4th quarter, you’re NOT a member of the wanna be soup-ed up car set.  You’re likely into horsepower, Miller Genuine Draft, and Man Laws.

Why anyone would choose to advertise a wanna-be cool car to football game viewers is beyond me.  Marketing decisions these days aren’t questioned enough by higher level executives I suppose. 

Bungie went and created their first Blogcast/Audiocast/P-dcast.  (Gotta avoid using that P-d word for fear Apple will sue me.)  Download it and listen to Marty O’Donnell talk about the Halo 3 Music.

WARNING – 60MB file! Click here to download.

Damn right.  Guitar Hero, that really catchy game with the fake guitar controller that allows you to play notes to your favorite songs kinda like a combination of Dance Dance Revolution, Karaoke Revolution, and "Simon", is coming to XBox 360. 

And it looks like RedOctane, the creators of the game intend on producing new songs that you can download to the Xbox 360 hard drive using Xbox Live so you don’t have the play the same songs over and over and over again… like with other <ahem> consoles.

The picture above is a prototype controller that works with the Xbox 360.  (It’s apparently, not the final design, so relax all your uptight design freakshows.)

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/top/guitar-hero-360-controller-203727.php

Wow.  Check this out.  (And by the way, have you bought you Xbox Live Vision Camera yet?)

Jackson Working on New Halo Game: A landmark partnership announced between Academy Award-winning writer, director and producer Peter Jackson, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Fran Walsh, and Microsoft Game Studios will create two new interactive entertainment series exclusively for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. The first series will be a collaborative effort with Bungie Studios to co-create the next great chapter in the "Halo" universe. The second series will be an entirely original property targeted at bringing new audiences into the captivating world of interactive entertainment. In addition, Microsoft Game Studios will partner with Jackson and Walsh to establish Wingnut Interactive, a studio dedicated to the creation of world-class interactive entertainment.

X06 Halo RTS Announced: "Halo Wars" is an all-new real-time strategy game based on the legendary "Halo" universe and designed exclusively for Xbox 360 by Ensemble Studios, creators of the "Age of Empires" franchise.
Two Exclusive GTA4 Eposides Coming to 360 Live: Rockstar and Take-Two announced they will provide Xbox 360 gamers with exclusive access to two downloadable, epic episodes of "Grand Theft Auto IV" via Xbox Live, each with hours of entirely new gameplay and available only on Xbox 360 just months after the release of the title.

Unnannounced Splinter Cell an Xbox 360 Exclusive: Ubisoft confirmed that the next "Splinter Cell" title, the next installment in the series after "Splinter Cell Double Agent," will be a console-exclusive on Xbox 360, a testament to the ability of Xbox 360 to deliver a complete experience no other console can match.

BioShock No Longer Coming to PS3 (At Launch): 2K Games confirmed that "BioShock," a revolution in the genre that will forever change the expectations for first-person shooters, will be released exclusively on Xbox 360 and Microsoft® Windows next spring.
"Project Gotham Racing® 4," the latest addition to the best-selling racing franchise from Bizarre Creations exclusively for Xbox 360, was unveiled. "Project Gotham Racing 4" promises to continue the "Project Gotham Racing" pedigree of innovation by introducing exciting new experiences to racing fans worldwide.
The beloved "Banjo-Kazooie®" franchise will breathe new, high-definition life on Xbox 360 exclusively from famed developer Rare Ltd.; astonishing next-generation visuals and presentation reunite beloved characters Banjo, Kazooie and Gruntilda — among other fan favorites — with their sharp wit and hilarious sense of humor.

PC/360 Cross-Platform Marvel MMO Coming: Microsoft Game Studios announced its highly anticipated new massively multiplayer online game, "Marvel Universe Online" for Xbox 360 and the Windows Vista operating system, developed by industry luminaries Cryptic Studios, creators of the smash hit "City of Heroes."

Doom is Live on Xbox Live Now: Two additions to Xbox Live Arcade were announced: the first-person shooter that pioneered the network-gaming era, "DOOM®," from acclaimed developer id Software and Activision, is available today for download via Xbox Live Arcade. The hey game includes the original four-episode, single-player game, four-player split screen (cooperative and deathmatch) and four-player cooperative and deathmatch over Xbox Live. Also coming to Xbox Live Arcade soon is "Sensible World of Soccer" from Codemasters. Based on the classic 1994 Amiga title, "Sensible World of Soccer" will let gamers choose between the original graphics or an updated, high-resolution look and feel — while still capturing the original’s entire world of football.

360 HD-DVD for $200 in U.S.: Arriving at retailers in North America, the U.K, France and Germany in mid-November 2006, the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player will retail for $199.99 in North America (estimated retail price)* and €199.99/£129.99 (estimated retail price)* in the U.K., France and Germany. The Xbox 360 HD DVD Player comes with the Universal Pictures’ blockbuster film Peter Jackson’s "King Kong" on HD DVD (for a limited time) and the Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote.

More details at:
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/x06/x06-news-shocker-summary-203653.php

Actually it’s worse than that.  Apple is releasing the corporate sharks on anyone using the word "pod" in their name like iPodder, myPodder, Podcast Ready, Profit Pod, etc., claiming that it infringes on their iPod trademark.  One of the more popular terms apparently Apple is putting the stomp on, is the actual term "podcast".

Here’s a copy of the letter being sent out.

Considering the amount of public-driven marketing being done by folks independently for the term "pod" I hardly think Apple is in any position to declare the term "built by Apple".  If folks end up bowing to Apple’s corporate legal team of Dewey, Screwem, and Howe, may I suggest the term, "Blogcast" instead?

Or better yet, "Zunecast"?

Yesterday, I woke up at the ungodly hour of 5:00AM to shower, walk Sheepa (our dog) – who by the way was just as groggy as I was, and drive into Malibu to go to Zuma Beach.  I ended up parking along Pacifc Coast Highway (illegally apparently) and travelling 3 miles on foot to the beach (@#$%#$) along with several hundred other folks.

You see, my friend Ted, who I consider to be my best friend and was my best man at my wedding, was going to compete in the Malibu Triathlon.

For the record:

1. I really thought he was drinking the bong water for wanting to do this.
2. It was WAY too early for any normal human to be up on a weekend.
3. I don’t watch Triathlons on TV much less go see them.

But nonetheless, I had heard triathlons were a big deal and I didn’t want him to go do this all by himself, being this was his first try at something like this, and I… well… didn’t have a lot of confidence that he’d be able to do the whole thing.

See, a triathlon as you may or may not know, is:

• a half mile swim in the ocean, followed by
• an immediate 18 mile bike ride, followed by
• a 4 mile run over hill and dale

Now, I knew Ted had been training but I didn’t think he’d really been "TRAINING" for this gig.  All I knew was that he had it in his head that he was going to do this thing.

So I showed up.  Which I felt good about I suppose since I was supporting my friend however I was NOT happy.  Walking down a highway at 6:00AM is not my idea of spending a morning.  Walking for 3 MILES is even worse.  I called Ted on his cell at 6:45AM and mumbled something to his voicemail about being late and pissed about the walk then hung up.

His start time was 7:30AM and I had NO idea where he was.  I managed to waddle out into the sand and found a sign that read "Men 35-39" which I assumed was him but I could find a messy haired Chinese guy in this sea of 100 wetsuit-wearing, goggles-bearing, athletes.

THE SWIM

BAM.  The gun sounded.  People started scrambling across the sand to the surf.  I started taking photos but then stopped as I looked in horror:  The breaking waves were STRONG and were knocking guys over.  The water was FREEZING cold.  Competitors were scrambling and kicking beneath the waves and were struggling to get to a buoy which marked the starting point of the half mile leg.

You really can’t appreciate what a half mile swim is like until you see hundreds of little white skull caps swimming/bobbing slowly through the waves between the start & finish buoys along the Malibu coast.  The finish buoy was near the horizon… and I had no idea that a half mile could look so far away.

I hate swimming.  Demetri Martin (comedian) once said, "Swimming is an confusing sport… because sometimes you do it for fun, and other times you do it so you DON’T DIE."  My body has the tendency to just sink.  I told me friend Chandler that I’m like Jack from "Titanic".  Just look at me and imagine slipping off of a floating piece of wood: "Blub blub blub."  That’s me.

I didn’t know where Ted was, so I just kind wandered around, every so often peering at the horizon looking for white skull caps to start coming in.  I decided to plant myself near the the location where the swimmers were supposed to coming in.  Here I learned two things:

1. The swimmers all had RFID tags.  Every swimmer was supposed to cross this electric field of sorts eminating from these pads that sat at the Stage 1 finish line.  As they came in a "boop boop BOOOOOOP!" sounded and the person knew they’d been "marked off" as coming in from the ocean.
2. There’s a relay.  Apparently, you don’t actually have to do the whole triathlon.  Some folks come in teams of 3, each person doing a "leg" of the triathlon.  Which to me sort of defeated the purpose but whatever.

THE BIKE

Ted came out of the water and started trudging to his bike.  I was so startled by his exit that I barely got a photo of him coming out of the water.  He couldn’t even hear me… and didn’t even know I was there because he had earplugs on.

As he made his way to the thousands of bikes in the waiting area, all I could think was:  HOLY SHIT.  HE MADE IT.  HE ACTUALLY MADE IT.  AND NOW HE’S GONNA DO THE BIKE PORTION.

At this point, I didn’t actually know that the bike route was 18 miles long.  I frankly didn’t know a whole lot about triathlons except that they were some how related to the fabled "Ironman" competition.  (Sidenote:  Saying that the Ironman is related to nature to a Triathlon is kinda like saying a Porsche Cayman is related to a Toyota Corolla.  The Ironman is 140.2 miles in length – 2 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, & 26.2 mile marathon run.  A Triathlon is 22.5 miles in length – .5 mile swim, 18 mile bike ride, & 4 mile mile run.  If you know anyone that’s ever done an Ironman competition, you should be in awe of that person.)  All I knew was that he was getting into his bicycling gear and was in for a serious ride.

Why?  Because the route had two uphill sections.  And uphill = uphell.  I missed him coming out of the gate and waited on the side for over an hour or so looking for him to pass by again.

I got a little antsy here.  This was taking a while and I wanted to go back to bed.  But then it dawned on me that Ted was doing a triathlon – he was the one going through hell – and here I am, bitching about having to wait around sitting on my lazy ass watching people whiz past me.  How much of an ass do you think I felt like at that point?

The Cheerleaders

In the meantime, two girls sat on the side of the route where both the bikes and the runners (some individuals had finished the bicycling portion and had moved on to the running portioin due to the staggering of the start times for some of the younger folks) and to my amazement, they cheered everyone on.  EVERYONE.  For over the hour that I was there, these two girls cheered like schoolgirls for every person that went past them.

Remember that I was a little irritable.  At first, the darker side of me was a little annoyed by them being there like a broken record.  After all, hearing, "Yay!  Go [insert company name here]!  You’re doing great!" over and over again can be a little repetitive.  But as I watched people go by and saw the utter pain and sheer anguish in everyone’s faces, I started feeling more and more like a grade A jerk.  Who was I to think poorly of anyone encouraging these folks along?  Christ – these people are doing far more exercise than I could ever hope to accomplish.  I found myself starting to actually shout along with them as I waited for Ted to come back. 

The Near-Crash
Then came the near-crash. 

A girl, who looked like she could barely stand, wobbled on her bike along the path.  Her head hung low, she hit a post and lost control.  She swerved in the opposite direction hitting yet another post and looked like she’d had it.  She just had a look of absolute fear on her face and had tears welling up in her eyes as she entered just the second leg of the triathlon and I said to myself, "I really should go help her."

But I stopped.  I remembered something someone said earlier about the bike section – the athletes had to complete the bicycle leg on the own power or they would be disqualified.  No water.  No help from anyone.  Only verbal encouragement. 

So I yelled at her to focus and that there was no one behind her so to take her time.  She regained her composure, nodded silently in acknowledgment, stared straight ahead and started moving forward.  I don’t know what happened to her but judging by the change in her expression, I’ll bet she made it.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity:  Ted hadn’t come back yet.  It was so long that I suspected something might have gone wrong.  I later found out that I was correct – he cramped up on the uphill incline and was reduced to a fraction of his training speed.  But he did eventually make it back.  In fact, on the final turn he was practically sprinting into the second stage finish.

THE RUN

Which left the run.  The run was a beach-side 4 mile trek that went uphill and back.  As the runners left the gate, I managed to take another picture and noticed that Ted didn’t look bad!  He was breathing well and was running at a good clip, grabbing a cup of water from a volunteer as he left the RFID gates.

I shouted out to him at this point and ran with him for a brief second:  This was the first time he knew for certain that I was there.  He actually hadn’t seen me up until this point.  I shouted that this was the final leg and to keep a steady pace as he ran toward the highway.

I knew he’d have the opportunity to stop and walk if he needed to at this point so it was only a matter of time before he came in.  Unlike the swim, where… well… you can’t exactly stop anywhere, or the bike, where… you have to keep momentum or you fall off, the run is very controlled and even when exhaustion sets in, an athlete can keep moving forward through sheer momentum.

Sure enough after a little more than a half hour, he came hurtling back down the highway.  I caught him at the final 1/4 mile and started yelling at him to kick it into gear and that this was all that was left… the final minute or two of the triathlon.  As I shot some good photos of him, then suddenly burst into a sprint.

Now when I say "sprint", I mean, FASTER THAN I WAS ABLE TO RUN.  Me – the guy that drank sparkling water from a nearby vending machine (BTW:  $2.50 for a bottle of sparkling water?  What highway robbery!) and sat on his duff for over 2 hours.  I couldn’t keep up with him.  He was seemingly unstoppable.

In fact, I didn’t even catch him at the finish line.  I looked for him but I couldn’t find him.  I figured he must have gone back to his bike so I wandered over there, and there he was – the Triathlete – gathering up his belongings at his bike.  And he didn’t look bad at all.  He still had that patented dumb-assed smile on his face, and he didn’t look any worse for the wear.  In fact, he looked like he’d broken a sweat but, well, he wasn’t about to topple over or anything. 

Unlike me.  I probably would have been swearing up a storm about some blister or some cramp that I got.  He got a cramp during the run but he was able to run through it… as if enduring the Triathlon wasn’t enough as it was.

CONCLUSION

And that led me to a reaffirmation that no matter how much I think I know, I sure as hell shouldn’t ever count people out that have the right attitude – because attitude counts for more than people know when faced with serious challenges.  While I’m more of a git’-er-done, bear-down, grit-your-teeth type of person that just trudges through any situation like a tank doing it’s duty-bound job, Ted always has this ridiculous can-do, optimistic, positive attitude that I frankly tend to mock a lot.  He thinks he can be an Olympic snowboarder.  He thinks he can write a movie script.  He thinks he can get an MBA.  He thinks he can make it big in the stock market.  He thinks he can publish a book.  I always shake my head at his constant damn-fool daydreaming.

But then again, he THOUGHT he could run an Triathlon.  And so he tried.

And well… I stand, humbled.  Good job, buddy…really:   Good job.

With the announcement around the Zune-branded media player, the most arbitrary question I get asked is, "Why brown?"  The Zune media players are being made available in Black, White and Brown… but why brown?

Well, the answer is a lot simpler than you might think.  Here’s a clip from Fashion Era online magazine talking about fashion trends for this year:

New Colours for Autumn Winter 2006/7 Fashion Trends

As autumn 2006 settles down, colour fashion trends for fall 2006/7 reveal that warm earthen tones and natural materials gain appeal as women shop for new clothes.

The strongest colours in this palette are golds, reds and violas.

In autumn 2006 the colours for apparel are firmly in accord with nature.  Traditional earthy tones with sun dried rich ochre and terracotta tones gain ground.  Women’s clothes the colour of pollen, honey, scorched gold, burnt earth and fox hues, meander amid a few livelier more shocking tones. Expect surprise with the jewel colours of purple and vibrant rich ruby red.  Urban charcoal greys are enlivened with splashes of the brighter tones and look new because many materials have glazes.  All the images below enlarge.

With both greys and gold tones found in pebbles and stones so currently fashionable, either silver grey or golden metals make a good AW (Autumn Winter) 06/07 choice for jewellery or accessory trims.  Golden sequins, paillettes and beads, shimmer and glimmer on fabrics that appear to look like molten gold and sheets of liquid glistening glass.  Gold is one of the season’s hottest looks.  I’m sure you will find gold dresses and jackets in every autumn range.

(Read the rest of the article here.) 

What a surprise.  From a fashion perspective, the color brown works great with gold, honey and the terracotta pallet. White and black are your all time "won’t miss the boat by much" colors, but brown is a color that matches with fall and winter’s fashionable colors.  If you find yourself scoffing at this attention to detail, remember that much of Apple’s reputation is based on their attention to style.

We’re just trying to get both style & substance into Zune.

For the XBox fanbois… don’t get too excited, being that Sony is after all the 600lb gorilla of console gaming and there are millions of PS fanbois out there…

But still… how can any one company get consistently worse press than Sony?  Boy – I thought we got bad press…

—————————-

Proof that Sony Lied about the Killzone 2 Demo
http://www.gameklip.com/v/1034/

Sony Embarrasses Themselves at E32006
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IH2w2l1JTs4&search=sony%20press%20conference

Japanese Dev on PS3: "It’s more expensive than my rent."
http://general.gamerfeed.com/gf/pr/10893/

IBM Says It’s Lucky to Get 10% to 20% Yields on Cell Processor
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3295

High PS3 Price is Pushing Away Developers
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3438

Analysts: PlayStation 3 to be late, expensive
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060219-6216.html

PS3 Games to cost $100?
http://www.gameshout.com/news/ps3_games_to_cost_100/article7223.htm

LA Times: Sony May Want to Stop Used Games
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=74128

For those of you at Mattel not familiar with what is apparently being released this holiday season, this is what I found online.  Check it out.

Kidtronics: By Fisher Price, Of Course
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/top/kidtronics-by-fisher-price-of-course-150003.php

Mattel Making Hybrid Video Game/Card Collecting System
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/mattel-making-hybrid-video-gamecard-collecting-system-189132.php

Reinventing Hot Wheels
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2006/tc20060717_486976.htm?campaign_id=bier_tclta

Mattel Wants Your Money This Holiday Season
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/mattel-wants-your-money-this-holiday-season-182031.php

We’re released our first XBox 360 How-to video.  And it’s already been downloaded 200,000 times.

Even though extensive documentation is provided on Xbox.com and support.microsoft.com, many customers get lost when reading a Knowledge Base article filled with the concepts and terminology of the ever-evolving gaming environment. At a certain point, many customers put down the mouse and pick up the phone to call Xbox Customer Support for help.

The first Xbox 360 Support video released on Xbox Live Marketplace has been downloaded over 200,000 times.

As the Xbox team surmised, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video would be worth a lot more than that to Microsoft’s customers. So, the team made their first technical support video about setting up an entertainment network: MCE Network Settings. And it’s been a hit, with some 200,000 downloads.

Major Nelson, the spokesblogger for the XBox360 team has stated that there are plans for more videos over time.

I think this is pretty cool. 

"…a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood."

Windows High School:  Microsoft designs a school system
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/09/07/school.of.future.ap/index.html

The idea is to start teaching kids in a new way that primes them to compete in the new global economy with new curriculum teaching children not just what kind of things they can learn but more importantly how to learn… instead of the old ways of teaching which were passed down from the 50’s.

Although one of my coworkers pointed out this quote:
“At the 162,000-square-foot high school, which sits on nearly eight acres, the day starts at 9:15 a.m. and ends at 4:19 p.m., simulating the typical work day.”
…in what world do these folks live in where the typical work day is 9:15AM to 4:19PM?

Sarcasm aside, there’s more information on the project HERE at Microsoft.com for those of you interested.

The 2nd Video Games Live event is taking place on Thursday, September 21st (2 weeks away).  

Video Games Live is a concert at Hollywood Bowl where the LA Philharmonic plays all of your favorite video game themes – to a venue packed with over 11,000 people.  Everything from your favorite old Nintendo themes to more recent games like Castlevania, Tomb Raider, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon’s Lair, all the Tom Clancy games, Sonic the Hedgehog, and classics like Tetris, Frogger, Gauntlet, etc.

To add to the mayhem, they’re going to have the actual creators of various famous video games present along with the the composers of the video game themes on hand.

And this year is special: 
They’re going to have the world premier of Halo 3’s music!
(Not just Halo 1 or 2 but HALO 3!)

Tickets are available here: 
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0B003C6EACB32C1C?artistid=1018457&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=1

Web site is here: 
http://www.videogameslive.com

This really is a lot of fun… I hope you all will come!

From the organizers:

"We are announcing a LOT of cool new surprises including the world premiere of the Halo 3 music, new Final Fantasy segments, new interactive segments with the crowd, celebrity guest appearances, acoustic game composer jams, etc. We’ve even figured out a way to incorporate the Goodyear Blimp into the show!

The concert starts at 8:00pm but the doors will be opening early (5:30pm) for our pre-show festival which includes game competitions, playable pre-release games such as Guitar Hero II, a costume contest, game designers and composers meet & greet, prize give-a-ways, etc. All of these events are open to each and every ticket holder.

That bastion of poor journalism known as the Inquirer has topped themselves.  According to a recent posting, a "top Windows writer" abandoned Microsoft.  Regarding this apparent loss, I have a question: 

Who is he?

No really – I’ve worked for Microsoft for 12 years now.  I’ve never heard of this guy.  As a prior Microsoft developer at HP, I’ve done a decent amount of development.  Petzold, Cunningham, Mauvais, Boling, Box, even IT books from guys like Minasi… these are names that I recognize. 

And I’m a book fiend.  I used to spend my (sad) spare time at Barnes & Noble just thumbing through new books and racking up a massive credit card bill on cool need publications.

But Peter Wright?  No offense to Peter but I had to search for him.  Apparently the guy wrote a book on Visual Basic 6.  On further investigation on Amazon, he’s written a few others including a some on the "Express" versions of the languages. 

Outside of that I’m trying to determine what gives the Inquirer the credibility to grace him with the title of "top Windows writer".  I’m sure he’s a smart guy… very few people that have the opportunity to write books on development languages are idiots.  But the usage of the phrase "top Windows writer" is a perfect example of the ridiculous journalistic practices of folks like the Register and the Inquirer.

I’m making something of a big deal about this because I’m tired of publications using overly zealous titles to link bait people into visiting their sites.  The Inquirer and the Register manages to get relatively high rankings from link tracking systems like Technorati and the like drawing more people to them on the basis of extremely misleading article titles.  One might say they’re "only giving people what they want" but I propose that people only visit their site "because they don’t know how better to judge the content on the site relative to other publications on the Internet… like CNet for example which is a much more credible news presence.

The entire world of journalism is going to hell.  We need to really start issuing "credibility ratings" to web sites and writers, in a manner similar to eBay because the world just doesn’t need another National Enquirer on the web.  We just don’t.

It’s official.  George Lucas and his sellout space trilogy has "jumped the shark" (or for those of you that watch Attack of the Show on G4TV:  Lucas has been "raped by a panda")

Hasbro has created "Star Wars Transformers" including Boba Fett’s fighter that transforms into… well… Boba Fett.  They also have a Millenium Falcon that separates into two pieces to transform into a Han Solo robot and a Chewbacca robot.

I couldn’t have even made this up.  Some moron of an executive had to actually push this through product planning.  See it here:  http://www.hasbro.com/starwars/default.cfm?page=to…

I don’t think I need to say anything more do I?  If you guys at Mattel ever, ever, EVER do something this stupid, I swear to God, I’m switching accounts. 

I’d heard this from several sources but I was hesitant to write anything about it until I’d seen it myself.  Now that I have, I can firmly make the claim:

h.264 looks like crap for hi-def movies

No really.  It does.  h.264 really looks bad for high definition movies making it irrelevant for either Blu-ray or HD-DVD.  This explains a lot and I mean a LOT.

For those of you just tuning in, h.264 is a video compression standard that was created for the purposes of real time video conferencing.  Folks that do video conferences over IP connections usually use H.264 when the converse over Polycom video conferencing cameras.  Or if you’ve ever used the video conferencing capability of Microsoft NetMeeting or Office Communicator or Windows Live Messenger, you’ve use H.264.

The problem is that H.264 was one of 3 video compression codec standards used by both Blu-Ray DVD and HD-DVD.  While it provides excellent compression for high definition (1080i, 1080p signals) it results in a pixelated image, one in which "blocky patches" or "artifacts" are clearly noticable – particularly when you freeze the image.

Contrast this with VC1, one of the other 3 video compression codec standards that both high definition DVD standards adopted.  VC1, also known as the standardized version of Windows Media Video 9, produces a fantastic picture:  One that looks gorgeous, unpixelated and clear even when frozen.

The 3rd video compression codec adopted by both camps is good ol’ MPEG2.  This is the same compression technology used by standard definition DVD today – the movies you watch on convention DVD players.  This is pretty good for today’s 9.1GB dual layer DVDs today but when used for high definition content, the resulting content usually requires 40GB of storage or more, making it difficult to use without a large capacity disc format.

Enter Blu-Ray DVD.  Blu-Ray was supposed to have dual layer 50GB discs available by now but they haven’t, making only the 25GB discs available.  This has forced Sony’s production studios and their partners to make a choice:  Use VC1, use H.264, or use MPEG2 and create less-than optimal high definition Blu-Ray discs.

They apparently chose the latter.  It turns out that the authoring software for BluRay DVD creation ONLY supports MPEG2.  They completely side stepped using VC1 or h.264 for some reason.  Speculation ranges from:

• h.264 had poor image quality
• VC1 required paying a royalty to Microsoft and h.264 required paying a license to MPEG-LA.
• MPEG2 was cheap for Sony being that they already held a license for the codec
• 1st generation of Blu-Ray player’s had decoding chips that were too buggy to create discs with more advanced codecs

Man, this stuff’s fascinating.