Kurt's Thoughts

Gizmodo reports that Steve Jobs had stern words for the Teachers Union:

Well, Maybe Steve Jobs Doesn’t Know Everything
"Not content with simply railing on Windows Vista, a few days ago his Jobsness blasted teachers’ unions as the major cause of education problems in this country."
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/steve-jobs/well-maybe-steve-jobs-doesnt-know-everything-238311.php

Their source is here:

Apple CEO lambasts teacher unions
"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said.  "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/16717129.htm

First of all, I come from a long line of teachers.  More than half my relatives are teachers, principals, or school counselors.  If it hadn’t been for computers, I probably would have become a teacher.  I sometimes think about trying to become a substitute teacher when I retire.

Personally, I think Steve Jobs is being presumptuous, talking about a topic that I don’t think he has any real experience in. Just because you sell computers to K-12 schools doesn’t make you inherently knowledgable about education itself – especially when it comes to an entire group’s profession.  I’m not exactly wild about any unionized labor however the biggest challenge with Education in America has less to do with the unionization of teachers and more to do with issues such as a our legal system and the prevailing social climate that teachers have to teach in.

OBSERVATIONS ON SCHOOL CHALLENGES TODAY
After growing up watching teachers all my life, (like waiting in the back of my Mom’s classrooms) my thinking has been that schools need to minimize the variation in child aptitude per class so that every group of students can move forward and progress together.  Dumping one problem child into a classroom hurts the educational quality of the whole class… much less dumping 3 or 4 problem children. Children with special needs have to be dealt with by teachers that are focused on dealing with them. Children with ADD, children with serious behavioral problems, children with developmental issues… having these children in the same classrooms as high performing students is completely par for the course.

And the imbalance of a constructive learning environment between "Home" and "School" is another big issue. Too many parents use school as ‘day care’ and really don’t care if their kids do their homework, live with appropriate social & behavioral boundaries, or adhere to strong role models.  Personally, I think all schools with the most difficult issues should switch to become boarding schools with uniforms to begin to enforce the basics of structure & boundaries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Also most curriculum has been uninspired.  Bill Gates has been focusing on new ways and new environments to teach in, other than the chalkboard, cubby hole, and student desk we see in the typical classroom today.  The reduction/elimination of programs like music, art, drama, and after school activities have created even less structure for students while diminishing their opportunities to flex their learning aptitude while still being given good guidance.

And then there’s all the red-tape, legal regulations, and litigation concerns that teachers have to go through.  Frankly, I think a lot of that could be fixed just by America going to a "loser pays" model for litigation:  If a parent sues a school, and they lose, they’re responsible for the legal fees and labor income lost associated with the trial.  Every other modern country in the world has this principle in place and lawsuits don’t run rampant there as they do in the US.

Yeah… this is about right.

Originally created and posted at Long’s blog:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070218/macs-vs-pc/

UPDATE 2/23/2007: 
First of all, here’s a recording of Joe Rogan on the Mikey Show and it’s fantastic:

Joe Rogan talks to Mikey about Carlos Mencia (part 1)
Joe Rogan talks to Mikey about Carlos Mencia (part 2)

So here’s the good stuff:  Carlos calls back in the next day to "set things straight"… and proceeds to make an nonsensical goof out of himself.

Carlos Mencia Responds to being Banned from the Mikey Show

In the same vein, Joe does an interview with Jim Breuer on Sirius Satellite’s "Breuer Unleashed"
discussing some of the biggest joke thieves out there, not the least of which being Carlos Mencia, whom Jim Breuer on the record backs up Joe Rogan on his assertion that Carlos steals other comedian’s bits:

Jim Breuer & Joe Rogan talk about Joke Thieves – Carlos Mencia & Dane Cook
http://media.joerogan.net/audio/Joe_Rogan_About_Mencia_2.mp3
(Taken from Joe Rogan’s Web Site)

——————-
UPDATE 2/22/2007: 
Apparently, A DJ named Mikey interviewed Carlos on their radio show in San Diego and asked him about the feud between him an Joe Rogan.  Carlos, in a nutshell, denies the whole thing.  He says that Joe Rogan’s just jealous, he never cites any actual bits that Carlos supposedly steals, and that there’s no credibility to any of his claims. 

He then proceeds to do a comedy routine that was a carbon copy of a bit that Mikey knew came from some DJ’s in Miami.  Mikey hangs up with Carlos and OUTS HIM ON THE AIR.  He says he can’t have Carlos on the show any more because Carlos just proved that he’s a joke thief to him right on the air.

Carlos Mencia strikes again
Carlos Mencia Banned from the Mikey Show in San Diego
(Taken from Digg)

———————–
ORIGINAL POST:
Oh man… have you guys seen this?  This is fantastic!

Joe Rogan confronts Carlos Mencia for stealing other comedian’s material
http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=4559c7f1-49bc-441d-a3d7-701074d4bdb0

This has been talked about all over the Internet:  It’s 10 minuntes of material and it all just happened right here in Hollywood a few days ago on Sunset Blvd.  Joe Rogan recorded everything on video camera that a friend was using at the time.  Joe essentially confronted Carlos Mencia at the Comedy Store right there on stage because Carlos apparently has been ripping off the material created by other comedian’s and presenting it as his own on stage.  Apparently, the folks in the comedy circuit all hate Carlos because he’s notorious for "bit-stealing".  

After some back and forth arguing, Joe proceeds to bring up other comic witnesses on stage to accuse Carlos of using their comedy.  Joe talks then about how George Lopez punched Carlos out at another club and slammed him against the wall a few months or so ago for stealing 13 minutes of George’s Las Vegas act and using it as his own on Carlo’s HBO special.  In fact, Joe includes a recording of Howard Stern interviewing George Lopez specifically about this apparently well-publicized incident and George pretty much laid out what happened & how Carlos stole from him.

There’s also a video clip in the above link of Bobby Lee formerly of MadTV who’s a friend of Carlos Mencia and even he says Carlos stole jokes from him.  Comedian Ari Shaffir rips him one on stage for stealing one of his jokes from back in 2002, which Carlos then used in 2006.  (They show the proof in the video)  What is sad is that Carlos proceeds to claim, "Do you really believe that a Jewish comedian (Ari) came up with that joke?"  (It was a joke about illegal immigrants crossing the Mexican/US border)

This is frickin’ awesome stuff and it get’s better:  Joe Rogan outs Carlos for being a fake on yet another level – Carlos Mencia isn’t even his real name.  It’s apparently Ned Losman.  When "Carlos" was an up and coming comedian, the management at the Comedy Store felt that he needed a more ethic name to appeal to the Los Angeles latin community so they created a stage name for him and even a "Mexican persona", even though he’s actually half-German & half-Honduran. 

The aftermath hasn’t been pretty.  Joe’s since been banned from the Comedy Store now and his agent dropped him because he represented both Joe & Carlos as well and he had to choose one or the other apparently:  "Carlos & Mind of Mencia" or "Joe & Fear Factor".  (http://www.joerogan.net)

I thought this was a fascinating bubble chart done by the New York Times that really shows where our revenue is broken out and what direction it’s headed it. 

I think it’s most interesting that while Windows & Office (the bulk of our revenue) have continued to climb, their share of our overall revenue has fallen not because Windows & Office "haven’t kept up" but more because of the incredible growth of Server and Xbox revenue.

A couple interesting things are still on the horizon:

• Xbox 360 going to .65 nanometer processor masking in April
  This will drastically reduce the cost of the processor, the most expensive component of the Xbox 360.  Essentially processors are created on massive plates of silicon and going to a smaller trace size makes the processor smaller, allowing for more processors to be created per silicon plate, creating greater yields of processors for the same cost of production.  Additionally, the reduction in size reduces the heat dissipation from the processor itself making the consoles run cooler, and potentially reducing the cost of the cooling fan of the unit.
• Xbox 360 CPU/GPU convergence
  This merges the tri-core PowerPC processor with the ATI graphics processor cutting the cost of the processing units conceivably in half.  This is the trick that Sony used to drive costs of production down on the PS2, and the reason why PS2s are so cheap while still making money for Sony.  Taking a play from their playbook, we’re doing the same thing with this generation of consoles.
  Note:  This was something we COULDN’T DO with the original Xbox because we used an Intel Pentium processor and an nVidia graphics processor – neither of which, their licensors (Intel & nVidia) would provide the designs for to enable us to pursue such a CPU/GPU convergence strategy.
• Windows Vista Adoption, Office 2007 Adoption
  Obviously, neither product has been widely deployed however, unlike past revisions, these products serve at least 2 key needs that businesses really need to fill:
  – DESKTOP/LAPTOP SECURITY:
  Companies need to encrypt data, not just to protect their users & customers, but to COMPLY with goverment regulations like Gramm Leach Bliley, Sarbanes Oxley, and HIPAA.  In other words, business don’t have a choice:  In order to remain in business, they must comply with privacy and protection laws and the easiest and most readiliy available way to adhere to many of these provisions is to adopt Windows Vista for it’s drive encryption technology, aka BitLocker, its intrusion detection technology and managable audit facilities, etc.
  – AUTOMATED DOCUMENT GENERATION:
  A major trend in the computing industry is the autogeneration of documents.  This has been possible in Office before but it was fairly difficult (and proprietary) to accomplish, using Visual Basic for Applications, a rudimentary subset of Visual Basic.  With Office 2007, the new OfficeXML document format makes it much much easier to create, parse, and filter upon document content and because Office is now automated programmatically by the Visual Studio Tools for Office, which leverages the actual Visual Studio development suite, any professional developer can leverage Office to automate document creation through the very development practices that they use for standard Windows applications.

Ran into this on the Internet.  Had a quick late night chuckle…
http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/photos/uncategorized/imapcandimarmed.jpg

UPDATE 2/8/2007:
What a surprise:  Jon Lech Johansen a.k.a. DVDJon agrees… Jobs is being disingenuous, especially on the topic of not wanting to license Fairplay DRM on the premise that it would "endanger it’s security":

As one who has already reverse engineered Apple’s FairPlay technology, Johansen takes issue with Steve Jobs’ claim that opening up FairPlay to others would endanger its security. DVD Jon points out, “Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM 10 (marketing name PlaysForSure) has not had more security breaches than FairPlay despite the fact that it has been licensed to dozens of companies,” adding that Microsoft’s decision to make the Zune DRM a closed system was a business decision and had nothing to do with DRM security.

LINK:  http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6012
——————–

ORIGINAL POST:
By now everyone’s heard of Steve Jobs’ rant about how DRM is bad and, why oh why does the music industry "force him" to use DRM.

I’ve never linked to the Inquirer because they’re the bastion of bad journalism – but this is a link to an editorial commentary (and it’s labelled as such on their site) about Jobs real motivations and to be honest, they read my mind.  Why?

1. Apple is the largest proponent of DRM with it’s Fairplay technology.  Fairplay effectively forces user to only use iTunes, iTunes Music store, and iPods because once you’ve made any sort of investment in iTunes, it’s not feasible to leave for another services or device type since your music is tied to Apple.
2. Apple needs DRM otherwise, people would, heaven forbid, be able to go to any other music store and purchase music without having a tie to Apple.

"DRM has been very good to Apple, but very bad for the end user."

This article couldn’t be more dead on.

LINK:  http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=37492

Dear Sony,

The next time you decide to do a marketing promotion for your products, try to avoid using your competitor’s products in your online advertising bugs.  Thanks.

Sincerely,
Microsoft’s fans

Apparently Sony’s marketing department did an advertisement for their upcoming PSP’s GranTurismo 4 and decided, "Feh.  All racing games are the same.  Let’s just steal the artwork from Project Gotham Racing 3.  No one will know the difference."

Oh yeah?  Apparently, IGN, Major Nelson, and Team Xbox noticed.  

• Sony Site Snafu:  
  http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/758/758402p1.html
• PSP using PGR3 Screenshot: 
  http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/01/25/psp-connect-using-pgr3-screenshot.aspx
• Sony to Publish PGR 3 as Gran Turismo 4?
  http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/12628/Sony-to-Publish-PGR-3-as-Gran-Turismo-4/

Here’s the imagery they stole from Bizarre Creations (the developer we contracted out for the programming work on the PGR series) courtesy of IGN.

For those of you who’ve been to one of our 5 sake tastings, have you ever wondered where I got the idea for the "competitive sake tasting" idea from? 

It was from this photo below:  Of the 25-30 people on the tour, we were challenged to taste 3 mystery sake and match them to 6 known sake.  The winners were the 6 you see toward the center of the photo, I being the one on the far right. 

Yes, we were all a little liquored up but we were having a lot of fun.  We had an Indian property mogul, a Finance lawyer, the wife of a cosmetics company owner, a Japanese TV star, and her boyfriend, a New York orthodontist.  And then there’s me – the Microsoft geek.

Those of you from Mattel who’ve never seen Barbie advertised to adults might want to check out this photo I took of the Barbie display in Tokyo, Japan. 

The Japanese love this stuff.  Women dress… well… often like Barbie dolls.  And it’s kinda hot in a nasty school girl kinda way I suppose.  I mean, seriously:  Check out some of the styles featured in the photo below.  And there was a lot more where that came from – much of which I saw on the streets below.  (This by the way was in a major department store called Isetan, on the 7th floor of a 12-15 story building with a basement.

And yes, that’s me holding on to the bag of fashions my wife bought.  I was dying for a chair to sit in.

Well, well, well.  I can finally include videos into blog posts on my Live Space.  (See http://thespacecraft.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!8AA773FE0A12B9E3!31132.entry) 

So here’s a look at one of the videos I have posted to my Soapbox account:  (Originally, I posted a link that allowed folks to peruse every video I had but then I thought twice about it and frankly, there’s probably a few videos in there that might be NSFW so…)

http://images.soapbox.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf
Video: Spiders on Drugs 

On a completely tangential note: Here’s a recent quote from one of the Vegas web sites I frequent.  Hilarious. 

LAS VEGAS FUN FACT:
"If you hit on 15 with the dealer showing a 6, it’s actually legal for the table to kill you."

Several of my coworkers have discovered the hard way that not all LCD TV’s/Displays are created equally.  In fact, the cheap ones are often quite limiting.

Take for instance the Vizio 47" LCD, VGA-compatible, "1080p" input-capable display.  This is a monitor most commonly found sold at Costco for… well… 25%-50% less than the price of any other brand.

In order to use an Xbox 360 at 1080p using a VGA connector, you have to set the resolution to 1920×1080… a feat Vizio owners will find impossible.  This is because, despite the supposed "support for 1080p", when using a VGA connection, the maximum resolution is really 1360×768 on the 47" model.

Huh?  So wait:  How does one get the advertised 1080p a.k.a. 1920×1080?  Well, it’s actually deceptive wording:  The display will not actually take 1080p input over VGA or HDMI/DVI.  When you use a Component connector instead of a VGA connector, you’ll discover that you’ll get "1080p"… but as anyone will tell you, Component video doesn’t provide 1080p… only 1080i.  What’s happening in the background is that the display is taking the 1080i signal and upconverting it to 1080p to provide a simulated 1080p, flicker-minimized experience.

So why do you care?  Well, there’s a lot of reasons.

1. What about VGA?  If you intended on connecting your computer to your display for a truly digital signal with 1080p/1920×1080, to your new Windows Vista Media Center, you’re gonna be sorely mistaken.
2. What about sync?  Whenever there is upconversion, there’s delay, and whenever there’s delay, there’s annoyance in the viewing experience:  Particularly if you’re playing Gears of War and reaction time is important.  This is why it’s so important to have minimal lag between the Xbox & the display.

The bottom line is that if you’re going to buy a display of this caliber, avoid being cheap.  You’ll regret it in the long term and end up with more disappointment than elation.

Here are thirteen quick, painless and easy (yet powerful) things you can do to protect your privacy and help defeat invasive data mining done by corporations and governments alike.

For example:

• Avoid Filing Change of Address Orders with USPS.
• Call the OneCall OptOut Number.
• OptOut of the Databases of Many Online Data Vendors.
• Use Private Phone to Protect Privacy in Online Auctions.
• Don’t Use Your Middle Initial.
• etc.

http://www.icwt.us/index.php/2006/12/31/13-easy-ways-to-safeguard-your-privacy-in-2007/

XBox 360 vs Playstation 3 vs Wii:  I love a good marketing chart!

• http://www.nexgenwars.com
• http://www.gamesystemwars.com/index.cfm
• http://www.videogamecharts.com

One of my vices (or virtues if you talk to the right people) is I have a adoration for Las Vegas & Blackjack in particular. 

Some find Vegas artificial.  One friend of mine even went so far as to call my favorite home away from home (Venetian Hotel & Casino) "tacky".  Y’know, I actually think it’s one of the more beautiful hotels on the strip.  With the exception of the table area being cavernous and the large pool being very mediocre, the Venetian has been my favorite hotel of all the Vegas properties. 

(Well, except for may be the Hard Rock.  And there’s completely different motivation around my love for that joint.  But I’ll save that story for later.)

Additionally, Blackjack is the only truly beatable game in Vegas.  Some say craps is doable but I don’t know too many people that have been successful at "dice control" as they call it.  Meanwhile, I know several folks that have been successful at Blackjack. 

Recently, I decided to cut & paste a few of the article links that I’ve found to be very interesting in the past few weeks, just so that I could share them with friends.  So here’s a few of the articles I’ve found to be "interesting" in the past year.  Hope you do too.

• 21 No-Nos:  Things you should never say or do when you play blackjack
  Some of these might seem like they fall into the ‘duh’ file however there are a few on there that are golden rules of 21 that a lot of people just don’t know – like regarding playing a 6-5 table.
  http://www.casinoplayer.com/archive/0612cp/total.htm
  
• Casino Childcare Facilities in Las Vegas
  What’s so interesting about this?  There are no longer ANY casinos on the strip that provide childcare whatsoever.  This is a complete 180 from the old days where Harrahs, Treasure Island, Excalibur, and Circus Circus all had top of the line facilities.  Nowadays, many casinos like Wynn & Bellagio completely PROHIBIT baby strollers on the premises.
  http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/ctable.cfm?id=17
  
• Las Vegas Blackjack Report:  Luxor Redux – January 2007
  I’m actually not that fond of the Luxor.  Nonetheless, this was an interesting observation on the state of Blackjack play in the one of the town’s bigger hotels.  Apparently, the casinos have clamped down so much that they’ve squeezed out their mid-level players so only $5/hand cocktail leeches play.
  http://www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_84_luxor.shtml 
  
• The Gloves are Off – An Interview with Daniel Negreanu
  Daniel Negreanu is one of the world’s best poker players and he’s also both a very rationale, shrewd individual as well as a somewhat unusually outspoken Christian when it comes to politics.  He comes out swinging on the topic of the current administration’s advocacy of making online poker illegal.
  http://www.allinmag.com/article.php?article=763
  
• 24 Hours In Vegas or Debt in Venice?
  So Simon Singh, a British mathematician and author wrote an interesting article about his trip to the Venetian Hotel & Casino and his strategy to beat the casino.  It’s an interesting tale and worth the read.
  http://www.simonsingh.net/24_Hours_In_Vegas.html
  
• Blackjack Strategy Charts Online
  Ken Smith, famed Blackjack player, has created a site that will automatically display the appropriate Blackjack basic strategy table for the type of game you’re playing depending on the rules you input.
  http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bjbse.php
  
• Owners of Las Vegas Casinos
  Steve Wynn?  Kirk Kerkorian?  Sheldon Adelson?  Who are these people?  They’re all folks that own or own controlling shares in Las Vegas’ largest casinos.  Here’s a list of folks that own each of the properties in America’s adult playland.

http://www.jetcafe.org/~npc/gambling/casino_owners.html


• The Documented House Rules for Blackjack in Las Vegas Casinos
  Every casino has different rules for Blackjack.  Some play with surrender, some don’t.  Some hit soft 17, some stand.  Some pay 6-5 on naturals, some pay 3-2.  It all depends on where you go, so it’s important to know who has what.  and that’s what’s on this chart.
  http://www.jetcafe.org/~npc/gambling/bj_conditions.html

If you’re skeptical about the concept of "video game lore", this will make you a believer.

In the mid 90’s, there was a game underdevelopment called "Penn & Teller’s Smoke & Mirrors".  It was never released but the product was basically finished.  It was just… well… really BAD.

But sometimes, things that are "really bad" mature over time to "really good".  This fella over at Waxy.org wrote up a whole thing about the game.

http://www.waxy.org/archive/2006/02/28/penn_tel.shtml

Also someone else wrote up a massive thread about the game.

http://archives.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1667022&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

Most of the hype revolves around a game called "Desert Bus".  The objective is to drive a bus from Arizona to Las Vegas for 8 hours.  It’s in real time so you have to play the game for 8 hours straight.  The bus needs an alignment as well so it veers to the left and if you don’t actually lean on the joystick, (in other words play) you can’t win.  

The game was designed in response to Janet Reno’s original complaints around the violence in games and how games should more accurately reflect real life.  Penn thought she was full of crap and decided to demonstrate what Janet Reno’s games would be like. 

The kicker is that after playing the game for 8 hours, you will have 5 bug slotches on your windshield and you’ll get ONE point for successfully doing it.  Apparently one kid actually did this back in the day with a pirated copy that was leaked to him.  (The game was never released)

There’s another game that’s hilarious.  It’s a racing game where the right controller ALWAYS wins.  No matter what your opponent does, you’ll always win.  And there’s a panic button that exists in the event your opponent wants to switch controllers:  It makes the opposite controller always win.

Etc. etc.

This was taken from a post on Gamespot.  It’s a list of all the missteps Sony’s made over the past year from A to Z.  They’re all legitimate and real near as I can tell. 

All I can say is WOW.

———————————-

We all know Sony has been taking a lot of bad press from the PS3, but lets take a look back at the year that has lead us to the Nov. 17th release date.

First, we start with Sony itself. Yes, I was going to only make a timeline of the PS3 news, but how can you ignore this arrogance from late 2005?

Nov. 10th, 2005 – Sony is caught hiding a rootkit inside music CD’s that place a virus on users computer. Sony’s Tom Hesse defends the decision by stating that people don’t know what it is, so they shouldn’t care

Now that we know Sony cares about us, lets move on to the PS3…

Feb 27th, 2006 – Sony misses it’s Spring launch date
May 8th, 2006 – Sony holds it’s E3 conference announcing the pricing of the PS3 at $600/$500
May 8th, 2006 – New PS3 controller will have six degrees of motion, but no rumble feature. Sony’s Phil Harrison states that rumble was last gen and no longer needed.
May 31st, 2006 – Sony’s Phil Harrison denies copying the Wiimote and states that the PS3 will replace the PC
Sep 5th, 2006 – Gamers looking to get the best picture out of Sony’s premium PlayStation 3 package will need to shell out extra for proper hookups.
Sept 6th, 2006 – PS3 is delayed in Europe until March 2007
Sept 6th, 2006 – PS3 launch shipment is cut from 2 million to 400,000 in the US (100,000 to Japan)
Sept 8th, 2006 – Sony’s President admits that the company’s hardware is in a current state of decline
Sept 26th, 2006 – PS3 first-party titles announced to be the same price as third party titles, at $59.99
Sept 26th, 2006 – Square Enix will not exclusively support Sony’s PS3 as much as they did with the PS2.
Sept 29th, 2006 – Sony’s President Ken Kutaragi states that his company does not care about the Xbox 360 and Wii competition.
October 12th, 2006 – Sony Exec calls the 360 and Wii "too expensive"
October 19th, 2006 – The infamous spec sheet comparison and how Sony claims the Xbox 360 requires HD-DVD to play games
October 20th, 2006 – Announced that Sony may have to replace your PS3 controller for you after it no longer holds charge
October 24th, 2006 – Sony sinks Lik-Sang
October 26th, 2006 – Sony’s Q2 profits decrease by 94%
October 28th, 2006 – Sony president Ken Kutaragi said he expects the PS3 to be capable of running games at a stunning 120fps
October 30th, 2006 – PS3 will push Sony $1.71 billion into the red
October 31st, 2006 – Japan launch of the PS3 is cut to 80,000 units
Nov 8th, 2006 – Sony ships without update. You must update your PS3 out of the box in order to use PlayStation Network
Nov 9th, 2006 – NBA Live 2007 is cancelled on the PS3
Nov 9th, 2006 – Oblivion is pushed back from launch title to Jan 2007
Nov 10th, 2006 – Sony’s Phil Harrison states that he can no longer confirm a March 2007 launch for Europe
Nov 11th, 2006 – PS3 launches in Japan and rewards few
Nov 11th, 2006 – Sony unprepared for Japan launch
Nov 14th, 2006 – Sony will miss 400,000 unit target for the US. Approx 150k to 200k will be shipped for launch
Nov 14th, 2006 – PS3 has backwards compatibility problems
Nov 16th, 2006 – PS3 downscales 720p games instead of upscaling to 1080i
Nov 16th, 2006 – Sony’s Jack Tretton comments on the PS3 BC problems and states that the Wii has 0 backwards compatibility
Nov 20, 2006 – NYT not impressed with PS3
Nov 20, 2006 – Game Devs Prefer 360
Nov 20, 2006 – PS3 annoys Joystiq
Nov 21, 2006 – PS3, PSP Rainbow Six held till ’07
Nov 23, 2006 – Saving Sony, one console at a time
Nov 25, 2006 – Sony retracts 1080i fix statement, leaving customers in lurch.
Nov 26, 2006 – More PS3 exclusives head to 360
Nov 26, 2006 – Bloomberg: Sony missed PS3 ship targets
Nov 30, 2006 – Sony shuffles senior execs
Nov 30, 2006 – Analyst: "I cannot imagine a PlayStation 4"
Dec 4, 2006 – Sony Australia: Wii "More Fun" than PS3
Dec 8, 2006 – Court rules for Immersion; Sony to pay up
Dec 11, 2006 – Industry watchers weigh in on "record-low tie ratios" for Wii and PS3 and other results from the month of the new systems’ debut.
Dec 19, 2006 – Time says PS3 was a bust
Dec 20, 2006 – PC World Calls PS3 a top tech mistake of 2006
Dec 20, 2006 – Forced bundles and high retail price put consumers off, claims tracking firm.
Dec 21, 2006 – Virtua Fighter 5 dukes it out on Xbox 360
Dec 21, 2006 – Sony files patent for wiimote style hand-held controler
Dec 27, 2006 – PS3 Greymarket Watch: Scalpers Returning PS3s Back To Stores.
Dec 27, 2006 – Gamers who queued for days to buy Sony’s PS3 are frantically trying to trade them for the much cheaper Wii.
Dec 28, 2006 – Sony’s PS3: High-Scorer No More
Jan 4, 2007 – Sony spokesman David Karraker: "Everything that we put on store shelves sold out,"
Jan 4, 2007 – A Gran Turismo game without force feedback? Say it ain’t so!
Jan 8, 2007 – PS3 demand slows, stores stocked aplenty
Jan 9, 2007 – Sony Misses Worldwide PS3 Shipment Targets. They shiped a million in the US, but not in Japan.
Jan 10, 2007 – Motorstorm isn’t going to be running in 1080p at 60FPS, despite Sony VP of Marketing David Dille saying this week that it would.
Jan 11, 2007 – Analyst: Lagging PS3 Sales ‘Troubling’

While it’s not all of Sony’s fault, they have done little to apologize for their delays and arrogant statements. It’s a bad trend that they’ve started, and the more they continue the more we’ll be seeing article after article on Gamespot…..day after day about something else they’ve done to flaw the PS3’s image.

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25247543&page=0

Seriously… this clip was too funny not to share with the world.  It’s a parody of Apple’s iPhone and Steve Jobs’ announcement around what it can do.

Conan O’Brien on the Apple iPhone:
http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=b474f921-c6ce-4cf3-a824-1afb7b0d61dd

Sales up 28% – Courtesy of NPD
(Taken from http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137693)

HW Sales (month and LTD)
Nintendo DS 1.6 mm 9.2 mm
PS2 1.4 mm 37.1 mm
GBA 850.7 K 35.1 mm
Xbox 360 1.1 mm 4.5 mm
Wii 604.2 K 1.1 mm
PSP 953.2 K 6.7 mm
PS3 490.7 K 687.3 K

Top 10 Video Games – December 2006
360 GEARS OF WAR – MICROSOFT 815.7 K
PS2 GUITAR HERO 2 W/GUITAR – ACTIVISION 805.2 K
PS2 MADDEN NFL 07 – ELECTRONIC ARTS 737.1 K
GCN LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS – NINTENDO 532.9 K
WII LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS – NINTENDO 519.2 K
PS2 WWE SMACKDOWN VS. RAW 2007 – THQ 484.5 K
NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS – NINTENDO 427.5 K
360 CALL OF DUTY 3 – ACTIVISION 410.8 K
NDS YOSHI’S ISLAND 2 – NINTENDO 407.2 K
PS2 CALL OF DUTY 3 – ACTIVISION 365.3 K

Top 10 Video Games – Annual 2006
PS2 MADDEN NFL 07 – ELECTRONIC ARTS 2.8 mm
NDS NEW SUPER MARIO BROS – NINTENDO 2.0 mm
360 GEARS OF WAR – MICROSOFT 1.8 mm
PS2 KINGDOM HEARTS II – SQUARE ENIX 1.7 mm
PS2 GUITAR HERO 2 W/GUITAR – ACTIVISION 1.3 mm
PS2 FINAL FANTASY XII – SQUARE ENIX 1.3 mm
NDS BRAIN AGE: TRAIN YOUR BRAIN – NINTENDO 1.1mm
360 MADDEN NFL 07 – ELECTRONIC ARTS 1.1mm
360 TOM CLANCY’S GRAW – UBISOFT 1.0 mm
PS2 NCAA FOOTBALL 07- ELECTRONIC ARTS 1.0 mm

Top 10 Titles – December 2006 INCLUDES ALL PLATFORMS (consoles and portables)
Madden NFL 07 – Electronic Arts 1.9 mm
Call Of Duty 3 – Activision 1.1 mm
Cars – THQ 874.0 k
Need for Speed: Carbon – Electronic Arts 871.6 k
360 GEARS OF WAR – MICROSOFT 815.7 K
PS2 GUITAR HERO 2 W/GUITAR – ACTIVISION 805.2 K
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy – LucasArts 792.3 K
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2007 – THQ 731.6 K
Tony Hawk’s Project 8 – Activision 713.9 K
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance – Activision 642.9 K

Top 10 Accessory Items – December 2006 Units
360 WIRELESS CONTROLLER 823.8 k
WII REMOTE CONTROLLER 646.7 k
WII NUNCHUK CONTROLLER 497.1 k
PS2 8 MEG MEMORY CARD 474.8 k
PS3 SIXAXIS WIRELESS CONTROLLER 336.0 k
PS2 MEMORY CARD 8 MEG 286.0 k
PS2/PS DUAL SHOCK2 CONTL 263.4 k
PS2/PS BLUE DL SH2 CNTL 245.2 k
360 PLAY & CHARGE KIT 224.6 k
PS2 CORDLESS ACTION CNTLR 219.9 k

Here’s something that’s been floating around the office:
http://halodance.ytmnd.com/

Don’t ask.  All I know is I find myself dancing around whenever I hit that web page.

There’s a few things in life I just LOVE.  Sure I love my wife, my family, and my dog.  And of course my friends.  But in the space of things that aren’t about people, I love:

• Las Vegas & Blackjack
• My job & my employer

Then along comes the Vanishing Point game:  A viral game that’s been going on for the past few months around Windows Vista.  Apparently, one of the clues leads to the fountains of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

Microsoft + Las Vegas? 

Damn.  That’s like Chocolate + Peanut butter.  Fried chicken + Waffles.  Red Vines + Mr. Pibb ...CRAZY DELICIOUS.

This is a handheld camera video taken at the fountains in front of the Bellagio of what happened on January 8th: http://assets.vanishingpointgame.com/time_0108_720.wmv