Gadget irony

I was reading this article about iPhones and other tech gadgets in classes, distracting students. While I am sitting in class. Surfing the internet on my laptop with wireless internet. Then, the irony of it struck me but also the inevitability.

Professors, it's inevitable. We cannot pay attention for more than 5 minutes, and if you're just gonna ramble on up there (for three and a half hours, in the case of this class), yes, we are going to take advantage of all that Steve Jobs and his cronies have given us.

I want to be www.paris.paris

Icann, the Internet gods, decided to add more suffixes for web addresses (to expand on the familiar .com and .org). Paris, France is the home of Icann, and they want to add .paris to the system. If they add a .paris web address, I vote that I should get to have the web address www.paris.paris. Wouldn't that be awesome? My computer even just turned that address into a link automatically--like it was meant to be.

free radiohead

So I just went online and bought the new Radiohead album "In Rainbows" for free. I'm sure that this is not news to you, but I still think it's pretty cool. You go on to their website, choose your option (discbox or download), and then you pick your price. So you can pay, or not pay, or whatever you want. Then you complete the transaction like any other internet purchase. Except that since I chose zero GBP as my price, they didn't ask for credit card information. And now I get Radiohead's new cd on October 10. I am very excited. You can read more here.

Note: I thought it would be nice to pay at least something so I'm not just another freeloading asshole, but I'm in class and it's not nice to pull out your credit card when sitting in the second row. Plus, I could have picked some dollar amount with soothing numbers that I like, but like I said, I'm sitting in class and I am incapable of waiting; I need instant gratification.

Awesome news headline

CNN online today had an outstanding headline: "Man puts rattlesnake in mouth, gets bitten." Really? It bit him? I wouldn't have thought that putting a rattlesnake in your mouth would piss it off, but alas, it did, and was considered front-page newsworthy. That's good journalism.

I have an opinion...

When I am looking at a concert lineup for a festival at Red Rocks, and I click on a band's link, if that link takes me to MySpace, that band is instantly fired. Discounted from being a potentially ok band. If you want to be a legit band, get a real damn website. MySpace is for pedophiles and people with nothing to do (yes, I have an account), not for legitimate business. Hmmm, maybe I can make it big as a lawyer with my MySpace account. Seriously. I thought maybe this band from the UK would be fun and new and exciting, but now I will never know, because I can't check them out. Because their "website" is a MySpace page.

Editor's Note: So it turns out that I was wrong about this particular band. The band is called The Editors, and they rock, and they DO have a real website. Red Rocks just thought that viewers would prefer the MySpace link (why, I ask you, why?!?). However, my above opinion still holds for those bands with MySpace pages only.

The Second Life

Call me technologically challenged, but I just learned of the creepiest thing EVER. It's called Second Life, and it's an entire virtual world. Nearly 2 million U.S. dollars are spent there each 24 hours (though you have to buy "Linden Dollars" to spend, then convert them back). Over 7 million people have Second Life avatars. People buy and sell virtual land (for real money), they have jog-a-thons, people go clubbing, they have jobs, you name it. So instead of doing this stuff in the "real world," people sit in front of their computers and pretend to do all of this. Now, non-profit organizations have started raising money in Second Life, and legitimate foundations fund this sort of virtual-philanthropy (NYT). My job is considering opening an office in Second Life. Creepy, huh?