PS3?

OK. I have to admit I am not Sony's number 1 Fan. But honestly, what is with all of the bad press the PS3 is getting lately? I didn't believe all of the commentary on Digg. Its hard to believe that such a crazy piece of hardware that is being sold for probably $300 below cost is sitting on store shelves. I mean, seriously, can't you do fun geeky things with it, run linux and crap? Its the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market if anything. Well, I am a believer that either the bad press convinced people, or that maybe Sony missed the mark with the PS3. Just look at this photo I took at my local Target this evening.

Cut

Becky chopped my hair off this evening. I was sick of the curls, and it was about time I did something about it.

Life is busy.

Realizing that I have had time to work for roughly 1800+ hours since I have moved to Raleigh...I haven't had time for a lot of other things. And that 1800 hours doesn't even account for time spent at home attempting to communicate with colleagues in China. Well, at least I got over there in leisure, because my next real chance of travel to China is most likely business. What is nuts about my feelings of no time is that I have basic to low responsibility by most standards. I have to pay bills, show up to work and mow the lawn...sometimes feed a cat. I dread the days when I am actually busy. Pretty much hang up the guitar, keyboard, paintbrushes, video games and little tech hobbies.

It takes me a while to change, although my life seems to be changing the most it ever has during this time. I finally am not living out of a bag, or a box of clothes on the floor.

While writing this, I have decided to start one of three, or all three of the following projects:

-document my summer travels (good thing I have pictures, because I have not written much about the trips)

-restart the podcast

-start some how-to's involving my pursuit of a good solution for serving up media in the house. So far, I have a pretty decent setup that I am mostly happy with, but it is far from perfect or fully functional.

Either way, there is going to be new stuff up here in the future...

From Italy to Raleigh

IMG_2188.jpg
Originally uploaded by nicholas adair.

I can now say I am possibly the worst blogger ever. I traveled around the world this summer, and only posted twice. For now, I have started a Flickr Pro account and uploaded all of my photos from Italy. I may even label them as to what/who is in the pictures, but for now they are organized into photosets by city. Anyway, enough excuses, and I am going to try and document the trips a little better, in blog form.

PS. I am now in Raleigh with Beck, and now you have an excuse to come to the south.

China must be big!

This is the ultra big mac that is served at the McDonalds in Shanghai. I figured this would have hit the states first, but it looks like China wins. This place is pretty nuts, possibly checking out the bar scene and nightlife tonight. This will be fun. 

Shanghai: Day 1

I am lying in bed in Shanghai, and still wheezing from the smog. This city is amazing, but damn is it harsh. I spent the day recovering from the jet lag of flying to the US from Italy, and then flying to China in less than 24 hours. Let my give the backstory. I won a paper competition, which you probably know from previous posts. The prize was an all expenses trip to Italy to check out the packaging machinery companies and culture there. Let me just tell you, Italy is one of the coolest places on this planet. Everything about the country is amazing. If you have even an inkling of desire to visit Italy, just go, now. It wouldn’t have been that hard to fend for myself with my horrible Italian, and the sights are just about enough to make you cry. While writing, I realized all you really need to do is listen to Viva Hate, Morrissey’s first solo album, and the world is in harmony. Now, back to the matter at hand (Ill get back to Italy with some pictures when I can, right now Shanghai is in my lungs).

Shanghai is really an intriguing city. It is very strange here. Almost cold, although the climate is anything but. The language barrier is awful, but most know tidbits of English, and I feel like a stupid American not knowing Mandarin, even though its really not necessary. I felt worse in Italy. Here people mostly speak English to you if you are white. In Italy I was routinely mistaken, and had to humbly replay that I was “Americano” and then get the ugly language from the Italians. Their language really is beautiful. English, especially American English is ugly, no if’s and’s or but’s. Yeah, and other common words are horrible compared to Si, Grazie, and Prego. Oh well, that’s just a rant. Shanghai is amazing. It is really a unique place, and such a multicultural space (almost feels like an experiment). I just finished watching the Brazil vs. Ghana world cup match at a local restaurant, and it was pretty awesome. It may sound silly, but watching a soccer match in Mandarin sounds a lot like German (the games were played in Italian and German in Italy). Back to music, I missed a friggin free concert with Depeche Mode and Morrissey by a day in Milan when in Italy. We were on a tight schedule of tours and city tours, so it really was impossible to stray, but damn that would have been cool.

Alright, thats it for tonight, I'll let you know a bit more tomorrow. (Ill also let you know the secret about Italy and the internet) Ciao. 

Debunking the RFID Virus

"A rebuttal to the recent paper on radio frequency identification (RFID) vulnerability"

"The "RFID Virus" is absolutely laughable."

It is amazing the amount of unfounded paranoia surrounding RFID...a good read.

read more | digg story

Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Music Industry

It's finally happened, people have gotten fed up enough that proper legal action is being taken. The suit covers price fixing...it also alleges that major labels were conspiring to first take down Napster and then build online music services that purposely stunted their service to drive people away from the idea of online music...

Maybe this will change something. I feel that people aren't as worried as they should be about the future of media, and hopefully this will change some of the RIAA's practices. Interesting read.

read more | digg story

SpotlightIndexer

For those of you that use Tiger (OSX 10.4), here's a cool free tool to add more power to its search capabilities.

read more | digg story

Loose Change - 2nd Edition

Loose Change - 2nd Edition

This is a must see free documentary about 911. Share it with your friends, or your enemies. And for the love of crap, lets try to get these villians out of office!

See video here

Good news!

The best few words I have e-heard today:

"Hate to tell you this, but you have to go to Italy this June..."

If this means what I think it means, a paper I wrote about RFID was selected as a winner of a contest that sends me to Italy to drink some wine and look at some packaging facilites...FREE.

I'll keep you posted.

RFID enabled robots help shoppers in Japan

RFID tagged robots help shoppers carry their bags and provide shopping information while using sensors to avoid other shoppers (and robots presumably)

This is pretty nuts...and probably will not happen in the US. People seem to be too caught up in giving up their privacy while shopping, even though they willingly give all of their shopping habits to credit card companies and even the store itself by using a bonus or club card. Anyway, I like the idea of being able to use a camera mounted on a robot to interact with a sales clerk from my desk...

read more | digg story

Homeland Security opening private mail

Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words "by Border Protection" and carrying the official seal of the Department of Homeland Security.

Kiss that thought of Freedom goodbye!

read more | digg story

The End of the Internet?

"Industry planners are mulling new subscription plans that would further limit the online experience, establishing "platinum," "gold" and "silver" levels of Internet access that would set limits on the number of downloads, media streams or even e-mail messages that could be sent or received."

If I wasn't already scared by the monopolistic control these the phone and cable companies have on keeping us using copper wire and coax... This would be absolutely horrible. Basically all the bright, sunny images I have of the future would turn into the most sick and sadistic marketing campain. Ugh, i'm getting chills.

Power elite and government officials, please do not do this. People, do not let this happen!

read more | digg story

BMG...again

Australian IT - Apple chops music giants' profits (, JANUARY 31, 2006): "'Music has become a disposable item,' BMG Music Publishing chairman and chief executive Nicholas Firth says."

This is exactly what is wrong with BMG. This is why BMG is not getting it, and pretty much all other record labels. This is why they tried to spy on you with root-kit DRM. They have no clue what people want. Nobody wants a subscription service to listen to download whatever crap your label has. Its all crap. What people want is to be able to browse a vast collection of music, and buy a la carte. Period. They also don't want to be tied into paying per month for a service. Don't we all have enough bills to remember and crap that keeps showing up on our credit cards? Wouldn't we rather own music rather than view it as a "disposable item"? Its frigging disgusting to hear a record company say that. Hopefully its the end for them, and the RIAA.

At the same time, I do see what my buddy Nicholas Firth has to say has some truth to it. Half the crap (if not more) that BMG publishes probably is disposable. After all, why would a record company want to sell you a recording you would want to listen to more than once? Bad buisiness.

I would rather not get into what the masses listen to, but it sure as hell is evident HOW they are listening to it. At least half of the students at MSU are walking advertisements of that fact.

Episode 6: Podsafe Music Network!

Episode 6 setup
Originally uploaded by adairnic.

Episode 6 is now available. This show is a solo attempt at podcast DJing. There are a couple of tracks from the Podsafe Music Network.

The first track @ 1:02 is
Golden Pastime

The second track @ 5:30 is
Pilotdrift

Hope you enjoy, please subscribe using your favorite aggregator.

Episode 5!

Episode 5 is here. Finally. Geeze Nick, took you long enough to figure out .xml, you say. Well, that is beside the point. We discuss some topics that need web augmentation, so here are the links that we promised:
The Donner Party didn't do it

Mozart's Musical Diary





Please Subscribe!

Mike at Cobo

Mike at Cobo
Originally uploaded by adairnic.

I caught Mike being a good citizen, red handed. Good to see that protesting spirit. If you can make it, check out the North American Auto Show at Cobo Hall in Detroit. Stay tuned for Episode 5 of the Rants from Nick Show.

Are the Intel Macs really 2-4x faster?

Enterprise Mac | InfoWorld | The Mac performance shell game | January 10, 2006 11:25 AM | By Tom Yager: "In short, Apple used multiprocessor benchmarks to skew the performance advantage that its Intel-based machines enjoy compared to single-core PowerPC G4 and G5. Apple used the industry-standard SPEC suite components SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000, but here's the catch: Apple used SPECint_rate2000 and SPECfp_rate2000. Both tests spawn multiple parallel benchmark processes and are specifically intended for comparing multiprocessor systems. Single CPU, or single-core machines do positively lousy on SPEC*_rate2000 tests. That's predictable and universally understood. Add a second CPU or a second core and, as you would expect, SPEC*_rate2000 performance on any multiprocessor-optimized test skyrockets compared to a single-processor box."

This guy obviously knows more than I do, but it seems that his information is correct. Doesn't seem like Apple was comparing apples to apples (pun intended).

Google Earth for the Mac

Google Earth - Home: "January 10, 2006 - Google Earth now available for the Mac"

This brightened up my day. I have been waiting for what seems like a year for Google to release this. And it is awesome. Just click the "Colorado River View" on the left bar, friggin' incredible.

CoverFlow

CoverFlow: "Don’t know about you, but I find browsing a list of album names somewhat uninspiring, to say the least. One of the big appeals of a physical album is the beautiful packaging and aesthetic appeal, something that’s sorely missed with the digital equivalent."

This is one of the coolest things I have found to assist iTunes on the Mac lately. All of your album covers whiz past you, double click to start playing the album. It is almost nostalgic, because the only time I see album art anymore is my vinyl collection. This is an awesome interactive album selection tool. Download it.

UPDATE: This is a Tiger-only app, so maybe another reason to upgrade...