After all these seasons it still amazes me how they come up with these intense story-lines, plot twists and crazy conspiracy theories.

Last night was (in my book) by far a pivitol plot twist. Walt Cummings having the audacity to lie to President Logan’s face about the intentions of his working with the Russians on this nerve gas deale-o. But of course, in comes superman Jack to threaten to carve his eyeball out like a delicious Buterball turkey on thanksgiving day would cause anyone to crack under pressure. And the look on the first lady’s face after Logan tried to kiss her on the cheek and walk away.. was I the only one that saw that? Wonder if that’s a foreshadow to something else she’s gonna be upto in the next few hours.

So we’ll see what CTU is going to do now that they lost their only leads and connections to where the gas is. Can’t wait for next monday. If you haven’t been watching shame on yourself, because that’s all I plan on talking about for a while. So either way it’s your loss. heh.

Tap into your inner voyuer and check out the random peeps only a New York City commuter train can provide. Every day Travis Ruse posts a shot to his photoblog Express Train from his commute via the F Train in new york. There is some classic shots on here.

He even scored a NYTimes article.

With all the talk of the Sony Root-Kit madness, the hightened enforcement of laws pertaining to music downloading and the heavier crackdown on P2P, it seems like the only way you can listen to music anymore is when you buy it. But heaven-forbid I try to listen to that purchased music on a “non-authorized” computer, my music tells me I can’t listen to it. Fun stuff, and seriously, it’s only getting worse. Saw this post on Boing Boing earlier and I thought it was worth a blog.

I love music, movies, and books. I also love technology. I want to use technology to deliver the media I love anywhere, anywhen, with anyone.

This is fair use: I bought it, let me use it. I will tell all my friends about my favorite music. I might play it for them or even give them a digital version of a song. This is evangelism, not theft. This is advertising you cannot buy.

Restrictive copyright is like a vegetarian knife. You bought the knife, but if you cut meat with it, we’ll sue you. Excuse me? Let’s think again.

Speaking of fun with DRM, your Senator needs an iPod!

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The best chicken referenced joke I’ve heard lately:

Why did Dennis cross the road?

To get away from the chicken!

I like Google. I live by it. When I worked in San Jose we all wanted to work there, as they kept the dot-com thing alive long after the rest of Silicon Valley had been burned by it. When I traveled around Easter Europe last Fall I was well aware of their localization (Google is harder to use in Polish, for example), but I was glad it was there, kinda like the friend you can call when you’re lost (you can switch to their American site with a simple click). Now I’m getting a little worried.

You see, I also remember their IPO and it’s endearing code of corporate conduct: “Don’t be evil.” Now, I understand they read up on China, consulted some internet Big Thinkers (including Esther Dyson), and did their best. But is anyone uncomforable with users in China not being able to type in the phrase “human rights in China?” On the other hand, some interent is better than none, and I want Google to get in there. It’s a tough question, but bowing to the Chinese governement feels a little off (I think we can all agree ignoring human rights is a little evil). Here’s a few links to read up on it.

San Francisco Chronicle (Google declines to attend the Congressional Human Rights Caucus):
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/31/BUGK4GVTQD1.DTL

Wired (Older background info on Google’s approach to China)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.01/google_pr.html

iPod Forensics - not that anyone here would have committed such a crime, but beware of illegally downloaded music files and their recorded history on your iPod drive when you go to re-sell it on ebay here’s the article

I found MetaCritic very useful for compiling music and film reviews from various media sources. Expecially useful was the best of from the last couple of years. Thought probably a gross over simplification, the idea of taking all media reviews down to a single 1-100 point scale is genious.

Also interesting is I am attempting to use this webpage thumbnail generation tool. Sort of hideous in its compression but i figured these sparce posts would be more interesting with a visual to boot.

http://www.toolbarn.com/web-tools/webpage-thumbnail/

It will be interesting to see how long this thumbnail is valid.

So I have been downloading a few Google videos to my PSP, which is a great little feature of the site. Since I was spending 10+ hours on airplanes this week, I decided to break down and try the purchase service and buy Kobe’s 81 point performance from Google to put on my PSP.

Bad idea. First off, there is no indication that videos you purchase will not be available in PSP format. But they aren’t. You can ONLY watch them by downloading the “Google Video Player”. What a big hassle. So I downloaded the dumb thing and tried to watch the video on my PC at home (that is pretty stout, by the by) and it crashed every single time I opened it. I tried about 5 times to watch the video and none of the controls worked. Every time I would click on any menu item or button, it would lock up with the hourglass cursor and that was it.

$4 poorly spent.

Looks like if you have Grand Theft Auto: LCS, you’re in luck, Fanjita and Ditlew have released a pack that will allow you to run homebrew games via the Save Game exploit in the game. This is pretty sweet, I think I may have to go pick up the game finally. .. to play of course.