SDSU TrueLife: Addicted to Facebook

Wii games are getting a little out of hand

So I'm all about Wii games. It is a totally fun, interactive video game. However, I think this game is taking it a little too far. According to an article on Gizmodo, a new Wii game is in the works. This game isn't your typical golf or baseball game, this game is a pole dancing game. Yes, it's true, they are designing a poledancing game for the Wii. I'm not really sure how this is going to work, do you have to have a physical pole in your  living room? I can see this getting a little out of hand at some college parties....

This is pretty cool...

I was reading in the New York Times and found this article "An Alternate Approach to Marketing Rock Bands." This article focuses on the band Panic at the Disco, which coincidentally happens to have a long playlist on my iTunes, so it caught my eye. To market their new CD, Panice web-site went completely blank in December. Building up to the cd's release date, over the next few weeks little hints and blogs began popping up to clue in their fans about what was in store for their new CD. This made their fans work for their music and spiked a lot of curiosity about the album. The album has sold a record number for its genre. The article goes a lot more in depth about the band and its music label. I think it's pretty cool that they are coming up with new ways to market their music and appeal to their fans. 

Not your average pet...

Check out this article on Gizmodo.

I thought hippos were supposed to be mean... seems sketchy.

And it's starting...

According to the New York Times, a 90 year-old paper in Madison, Wisconsin shut down their presses to devote their time to reporting online. The Capital Times was facing increased costs with lower print subscriptions, but a higher number of online subscriptions, so they reluctantly quit printing.

I think this marks an important trend in print journalism. Newspapers are becoming a dying a breed. While I do believe we will start to see more and more newspapers heading this direction, I do not believe that printed newspapers will die out completely. However, they will probably become pretty sparse with only the few major ones surviving eventually. 

I know I would much rather pay for an online subscription to a newspaper than receive it daily in print. It is much more convenient to be able to read it whenever and access it from wherever there is a computer. Besides, reading online doesn't leave the dreaded black streaks on your fingers from reading the newspaper.

Read the article from the NY Times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/media/28link.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin 

Tonight Show

I heard on the radio that Jimmy Fallon (SNL star) is the new replacement for Conan O'Brien's late night show. However, for those Conan fans out there he is not gone forever, because he will instead be taking over Jay Leno's spot earlier in the evening. 

I'm kind of excited to see how Jimmy Fallon is going to do. I liked him on SNL so it will be interesting to see what he brings to late night television. However, I am sad to see Leno go. I will definitely miss his Jay-walking and headline segments, of course. I do think Conan will do a good job he will probably have to tone down some of his stuff if he is going to fill Leno's shoes. 

In yet another article I was reading on the Machinist's web page... I read an article about Macs being better than PC's. (duh) I thought this article highlighted a very important factor in the Mac vs PC war: start-up and shut down time. 

I use a Mac at home and for school but at work I have to use a PC. I am always amazed at how my Mac will fire up at the push of a button almost instantly. However, when I'm at work I have to go to the bathroom, pour a cup of coffee and read my mail before my computer is fully up and running. According to the article, a "Gateway desktop computer at 1 minute, 13 seconds to start up, and 44.3 seconds to shut down.  A comparable iMac started up in 28.7 seconds and shut down in only 4 seconds."

Take that PC users. 

Check out that article here:

machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/04/16/mac_vs_pc/index.html

Web Security vs. Chocolate

According to an article on the Machinist's web page, women are more likely to give up their computer passwords than men. However, the part of the article that gets me the most is... they gave up their passwords in exchange for a piece of candy. Now, I guess if you were having one of those Hungry? Why wait? moments this could be justified. But in most cases I don't believe it would be. 

As far as women disclosing their information more freely... Whoever heard of a woman turning down chocolate?

For more information, check out the article. 

http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/04/17/password_survey/index.html

Squirrels Gone Wild...Really?

It's a little rough, but here it is..FINALLY!!!

Gee Whiz

If only they could come up with something a little more practical. I'd prefer a mirror on my iPod or on my cell phone please?

VEISHA...

Well... the verdict is back on student response to this year's new VEISHA policies. You could say they revolted, but not in the sense of previous VEISHA riots. Instead, hardly anybody purchased the wristbands or attended the concerts. According to a girl I know on the VEISHA committee, they had only sound around 2,000 wristbands, when they expected to quickly sell out of the 7,000.

Apparently, students were not the only ones who were upset with policy. Eve 6 was one band that was scheduled to perform on Saturday night. When they found out about the wristband situation, they negotiated a new deal with Iowa State because they believed that their concert should not be limited and anybody should feel free to attend. So, Even 6 ended up playing on Friday night instead of Saturday and it was an open concert. However, I believe that Iowa State did a poor job of communicating this, because I talked to a lot of people and nobody heard that it was open to the public. However, due to poor communication and bad weather, hardly anyone showed up to the concert on Friday night. The same goes for Saturday night. I personally, never ventured onto central campus for the usual festivities of VEISHA. All in all, VEISHA was kind of a dud this year. We'll see if they decide to rethink the new policies for next year.

Who Tall Are YOU???

Today's eye-catching read came from Gizmodo about the "Who Tall Are You Mirror." This article caught my eye, because being 4'11'' I constantly hear jokes about how short I am, how much I haven't grown, etc. The who tall are you mirror is a mirror that measures how tall you are compared to celebrities. I think this is pretty cool. Haven't you always wondered how tall celebrities really are? This mirror gives you a realistic comparison.

I might invest in one, this way the next time somebody cracks a joke about being short, I can have a quick comeback... "Hey I'm as tall as Dakota Fanning."

VEISHA

Those of us familiar with the Iowa, more specifically Iowa State University, knows what VEISHA is. For all of you who are not familiar, VEISHA is a week-long celebration of the university that credits the university's original colleges. For the students, it's basically a week long party.
I went to ISU last year, and did the VEISHA thing. At the heart of VEISHA is is the free concerts it offers students, faculty and the community. One of the most exciting parts of VEISHA was crowding onto central campus to wait for the concerts to begin. Last year, Chris Cagel, Story of the Year and Mike Jones were there. Central campus was filled with vendors, giving it a carnival-like atmosphere.

This year, I plan on going back to Ames to visit old friends for VEISHA. However, I do not have much too look forward to because VEISHA changed its policy on the concerts. As of this year, they are selling wristbands in order to get into the concerts. Not only that, but they are only selling 7,000 wristbands. Almost 27,000 people go to ISU, which leaves a total of 20,000 students who are missing out on the best part of the celebration. They have also moved the concerts off of central campus to a separate location (I think it's somewhere by Hilton) Needless to say, the students were not very happy about the turn of events.

I am going to have to say that I am not very happy either. The concerts were the highlight of VEISHA. It will be interesting to see how much the atmosphere has changed when I go down there this weekend.

What's next?

I read a very interesting and mind-boggling article on MSNBC. Apparently, Japan has designed a new kind of air craft that to go into space. However, this is not your typically space craft. This one contains no passengers and is only 2x2.8 inches. This spacecraft is a paper airplane.

The Japanese have designed a paper airplane that will be released in space and will withstand exiting space. The paper airplane has already passed simulation tests unharmed.

Who would've thought that a paper airplane would be the latest invention?

Hilarious!!!

This might be the funniest thing in awhile....
I was reading an article on TechCrunch that referred to Rick-Rolling. Now what is Rick-Rolling? Apparently, Rick-Rolling is when a person puts in a seemingly normal link, but instead it links to Rick Astely's music video for "Never Gonna Give You Up." TechCrunch gave the heads up that Youtube in Australia and the UK were Rick-Rolling all their videos.

This prompted me to do some investigating, and yep, the United States did it too. I clicked on some random video that was supposed to be about a Dad snoring and up popped Rick's disgustingly awesome 80's video. I'm going to have to say my favorite part of the video is when the guy does a full-out toe-touch in the background. That's some good stuff right there.

Ken Burns Effect

Transitions

Random

While I was scanning through my news feeds through the endless lists of gadgets that I have never heard of, nor actually care to hear of, this article from Gizmodo stood out.


This article made me chuckle a little and then made me think a little bit. In this story, John Mayer writes an error report to Apple when his iTunes didn't work right. He addressed a question that has always bothered me a little bit...what happens to those things anyway? Is there somebody who actually reads them? (what an awful job that would be)
So many times have I just chose to ignore them. But there are sometimes when I have the same problem over and over when I choose to send them. But it seems like my problem continues to persist and nothing ever gets better.
Hmmm.... just something random to think about....

Wall Street Journal Online

I read this article on Salon about the Wall Street Journal. Right now, if you went to the Wall Street Journal's website and wanted to read all of its articles, you would have to purchase a subscription, which according to Salon costs about $79. Apparently, there is a way to by pass paying a large sum of money for a subscription and it is completely legal. The Wall Street Journal allows users of Google News and Digg access to full articles. So, while you can't read them from the Wall Street Journal's website, you can access the same material through these other websites.

According to Salon, you shouldn't even feel bad about doing this because if the Journal didn't want you to be able to access these for free they wouldn't allow the option. This is great news for people like me. I am a poor college student, but an avid consumer of the news. I am not going to spend $80 just to read their articles, but now that I know I can access them for free, I will definitely take advantage of this.

MySong

There is an article on Gizmodo about a new program called MySong. This is a program from Microsoft that allows a user to sing into a microphone and the program will automatically generate chords and music to accompany your melody. They say that this is perfect for the person who really wants to sing a song but has no musical experience.

This is a pretty cool program, but I doubt there is going to be any hit artists making the charts because of it. Personally, I think they need to leave the music making up to the professionals. I watched the video on Gizmodo (It was pretty funny and pretty cheesy) about the program. I didn't really think it sounded all the great and it didn't seem like there were many options to change the tone of your music. Oh well... it would be something pretty neat to play around with I guess.

New Facebook App

It appears that Facebook might be offering something more constructive than "creeping" on other people's photos and playing online games. I just read an article in the New York Times about a new application that is going to be launched on Facebook on Monday that will allow people to find others with the same blood type. Apparently, in times of crisis, this application will guide people on where to give blood and if their blood type is needed. If a user signs up for this application, they will receive notice if there is a shortage of their blood type in their area. Thousands of people are on Facebook and I think this is a great way to reach people and let them know their help is needed.

I think this application is a step in the right direction for Facebook and its users. Many people think that Facebook is just a place to put up inappropriate pictures of last weekend. This is adding a more serious note that will actually be beneficial for others. I'm not sure how this application is going to work and if all the kinds are ironed out yet. It will be interesting to see if any others will follow in the same footsteps.

Interesting...

I read a little blurb on TechCrunch today about how blogging is good for people socially. Apparently, a study was done that showed that bloggers are better adjusted and have better social lives. I think this is really interesting because it just shows how much of our lives and interactions occur online.

According to this study and article, blogging made people feel less anxious and depressed. This makes me a little concerned because people are getting so used to being online and interacting over instant messaging or e-mail that they are more comfortable doing that than having face-to-face interactions. I wonder if the day is going to come when more relationships are based over online interaction than in person?

NIN

I read an article on Salon today about Nine Inch Nails and their new album. It was really interesting, because instead of signing with a record lable, they are changing the way their music is distributed all together. They have compiled a 4 part album. They are offering the first part to listeners for free. They can download it off their website. They have also put the first part onto music sharing sits, like BitTorrent. Most artists, would hate to have their music be on there, but NIN is embracing this. They also have various packages for listeners to purchase their music online. 

Another really unique thing about this album is that NIN isn't concerned about copying. They actually want people to copy their music. Instead of the normal copyright that is put on albums, they have a creative commons license for it. Which means that other people can copy it or even re-mix it for their own personal use.

I think that NIN is ahead of their time. They are really embracing the essence of the online community and instead of fighting it they are trying to make it work to their advantage. More and more artists will hopefully start providing new formats for their listeners. They might not be profitable from it this first time, but it will be interesting to see how everything turns out.

Working with Sound

New Apple Stuff?

As I was scanning through my Google feeds today, I noticed a few articles about the much anticipated Apple release tomorrow. Rumor has it that the new version of the MacBook is going to hit the shelves very soon. Best Buy even reportedly has the product numbers already. However, along with those product numbers there comes some very expensive prices.

It will be interesting to see what Apple has come up with this time. I'm sure it's a smaller and better version of the already existing MacBook. Being a Mac User, I'm among the herds of people waiting to see what Apple unveils tomorrow (if anything.) Unfortunately, you won't find me the first in line to buy the product. Whatever, Apple has in store for us would certainly break my bank.

ID Chyron

New Jackrabbit Logo

Music Downloading on Campus

The University of South Dakota is now offering a new service to their students in the form of music downloading. Apparently, USD bought a membership to a music downloading program so now all students are able to download music for free, and more importantly, legally.

I don't know all of the details to this, so I'm unsure about how it works. But I think it would be a great thing for SDSU to follow in USD's footsteps. Being the poor college student I am, it is incredibly tempting to get on LimeWire or another file-sharing program and just steal my music instead of paying for it all on iTunes. Music is a huge part of most college students' lives. And offering this service for free to the students of SDSU would definitely be a hit. SDSU should look into this a little more and maybe jump on the bandwagon.

Craziness

I just read one of the craziest articles, ever. Apparently, Kool-Aid and Reebok launched a new line of shoes, featuring Kool-Aid scented sneakers. First of all, the article had a picture of the new shoes... and I would hope that just based on looks alone that would be enough to scare anyone off. 

Secondly, I don't know if I would really be comfortable having shoes that smelled like grape or strawberry. It sounds like a good idea but it leaves me questioning a few things... How long does that smell last? Does it last throughout the whole life of the shoe or just for the few weeks. Also, what if you combine the strawberry smell with nasty foot smell? Is it still going to smell like strawberry? Finally, who ever came up with the idea to cross-brand Reebok and Kool-Aid. That might be one of the most bizarre combinations in history. 

I guess it will be interesting to see if these sneakers are going to be a hit or not. 

http://gizmodo.com/357769/reebok-released-kool+aid-scented-shoes-for-some-insane-reason

Illegal Downloads

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/12/uk-proposes-three-strikes-and-your-out-illegal-downloading-law/

I read an article on TechCrunch about how the UK is trying to pass a three strikes and you're out law for illegal downloading. The first time a person is caught downloading illegal material, they will receive a warning e-mail. The second time, their internet will be suspended. Finally, on the third time, they will lose their internet all together. This law sounsd like a good idea, but I think it's definitely going to encounter some problems.

What about public, shared computers? Hundreds of people could use the same computer in just one day. Who is going to lose their internet subscription if people are downloading illegal material? And if people are using shared computers for downloading illegal material, what is goign to stop them? They could just move on to a different computer.

I know that illegal downloading is wrong and something should be done about it. But I'm not sure if this law is the way to go. It sounds good in theory, but I think they are going to have a lot of problems when it comes to enforcing it.

Facebook

I read an article in the New York Times today that was talking about Facebook. This article in particular caught my eye because, like most college students, I have a Facebook account. However, after reading this article I found out some information about Facebook that is a little unsettling.

The article dove in depth about how it's almost impossible to delete yourself off of Facebook once you already have an account. Even people who contacted Facebook to have their account deleted found that Facebook wasn't very cooperative.

Personally, I think this is a little scary. I don't plan on having Facebook forever. It's fine for now when I'm in college, but once I start a professional career I don't plan on keeping it up. It would be nice to know that I could just delete my account and be done with it. But apparently, in order for my information to be off Facebook, I would have to go through and delete every wall post, every group membership, every message. I have thousands of things on Facebook, it would take me days to delete all of that stuff.

C'mon Facebook...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/technology/11facebook.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=technology

First Assignment

Yahoo and Google

All of the blogging buzz lately seems to be centered around Microsoft attempting to buy Yahoo. So I felt I better join the pack of bloggers and write one of my own on the topic. 

Honestly, I don't know all of the details, but I think that as long as the acquisition of Yahoo does not make Microsoft a Monopoly then I really don't have a preference. Google is obviously getting their panties in a bunch because they are going to finally have some real competition if this deal goes through. This is the United States and we do have a free market economy, so normally I'd say that Microsoft should go for it. The only problem here, is that Microsoft is already one of the largest corporations, and then it might run the risk of completely controlling the market. I don't know, I guess we'll have to see how this whole situation pans out.

Get Real?

I was reading my RSS Feeds in class today and I found an interesting one on Salon: Machinist. It was titled Britney Spears is Stimulating the Economy (for real.) I was a little shocked. Britney Spears can't even hold her own life together, how is she stimulating a whole nation's economy? According the article, Spears generates an enormous amount of news because so many people are interested in her. This leads to more and more people tuning into online news sites, which creates revenue through the online ads.

Sometimes, I have to wonder how Britney Spears makes the top of everyone's online priorities. The article even had a picture of a sign posted by TMZ with the words "Britney we love you" sprawled across it. It's no wonder why TMZ loves Britney since she is generating more gossip and revenue for them. The only thing I find hard to swallow, is how everyone else can still be in love with her.

Link to article: machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/01/30/britney_stimulus/index.html