Old story, but just found it today: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/3561194/iTunes-under-threat-as-bands-take-their-business-elsewhere.html

"Because iTunes steadfastly refuses to 'lock' any album (the vast majority of songs on the site can be downloaded as individual tracks), AC/DC don't just boycott the online store, but are now active anti-iTunes evangelists."

Angus Young explains:

"'Our real reason is that we honestly believe the songs on any of our albums belong together... If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album - and we don't think that represents us musically.'"

In all fairness to Mr. Young, the contextual information contained in an entire album is essential to complete understanding vis-à-vis such treatises such as "Giving The Dog A Bone" and "Big Balls".

Scientists at Dartmouth put dead salmon into fMRI scan and find that, according to the "analysis", said dead salmon was "thinking". An interesting read about false positives and data analysis.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/09/fmrisalmon/

Protip: "Seat of Pants" is not, in fact, a software development methodology.

OK, *somebody* fed a big bowl of stupid to every computer I've interacted with today. Which one of you was it?

Today I spent most of the day reading documentation that was out of date, trying to figure out software that doesn't work, so it can produce output that will, in all likelihood, be largely ignored. At the top of the page in 1-inch tall letters: "Center for Software Excellence".

I just heard today of a site called Yammer. Apparently, people get together and "yammer" at each other. And, as mentioned earlier, there's Twitter, apparently where one goes to... twit?

Apparently the key to web 2.0 success is to have a name that is at least somewhat derogatory to the users.

Bought some RAM to update my imac. Mainly so I can run applications in windows in a VirtualBox window. And by applications I mean games. Mostly they're from like ten years ago so running in a VM isn't much of a stretch.

I have BootCamp for the same thing but rebooting is such a PITA. Especially since I usually just put the computer to sleep instead of turning it off. That way I can just sit down and surf for porn work on my computer right away.

One of my high school english teachers used to refer to television as the "idiot box". I was watching my television (one of those flat panel jobs) the other day, thinking, if only we had seen the future of television back then. It's not like an idiot box at all. It's really more like an idiot slab.

Some people fear that we will create robots as killing machines. Then these machines will rise up and wipe us out. However today I had an epiphany; I welcome the robot killing machines. To understand why, let's take a trip to the battlefield of tomorrow.

Solider 1: Is the terminator ready?

Solider 2: Yes, here he comes.

[Metal endoskeleton lumbers along, carrying a large rifle. Suddenly, its eyes change from glowing red to glowing blue.]

Solider 1: Why did his eyes turn blue?

Solider 2: He crashed again. We need to reboot him.

Solider 1: God damn it. Go reboot him.

[Solider 2 runs over to the terminator, starts poking things. The terminator twitches, takes a step, then stops again.]

Solider 1: What happened?

Solider 2: I dunno, I think it's got a driver issue.

Solider 1: Well, hurry up. Those killbots are almost here.

[Solider 2 works frantically on terminator. Killbots crest the hill in the distance.]

Killbots: SOLIDERS! DO YOU HAS THE POTENCY SHE NEEDZ? CHEAP PHARMA, V1AG@!!

Solider 1: What the fuck?

Solider 2: The killbots, sir, they've been taken over by spammers.

[Solider 1 thows his rifle on the ground.]

Solider 1: Fuck this shit. I'm going home.

 

And that's when peace broke out all over the world.

I went to a presentation of on Windows Azure today. Personally, I'm holding out for Windows Mauve.¹

 

¹Little known fact, mauve is scientifically proven to be the funniest of all colors.