It's actually closer to 96.45%

And worry not, I'll have some real information here shortly.

"These Are the stakes"

I finally found it! The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential campaign ad! The one where the little girl gets blown up! Oh wow, I've honestly never seen it before. Powerful stuff. Apparently it was so disturbing they only ran it on TV once. Good thing, too. I dunno if I would wanna watch that thing during every half hour of TV during an election cycle. I watched the network news while staying with my Dad during the 2006 midterms, and that was just terrible. I think by 2008 I'll just swear off TV entirely.

Did I talk about that, actually? My plan for the future? I don't think I'll get cable or satellite or whatever when it comes time for me to get my own place. Internet, yes, and a decent cell phone service, but no TV. I'll probably rather get "season passes" to things like you can do now on iTunes or the Xbox 360, and watch only the shows I'm interested in, and only when I want. Similar to my Zune Pass setup. I wonder if I'll be able to get some sort of "TV Pass" system, and if that would ever be cheaper than buying series individually. Let's see... shows I'd be interested in: Heroes, Lost, House, South Park (maybe), The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, Studio 60 if it's still on the air... I think that's really it, I guess.

Hrmm.... this comic seems like a good way to end the post.

All You Can Eat...

With Your EARS. Ew...

So yeah, Zune. Microsoft's iPod. I have never owned an MP3 player with more than a gig of storage. I haven't completely felt the urge, though I've got to say, wandering up and down the aisles of CD's at Target, the temptation grows. I can only imagine the terror that grips employees of Best Buy, Frys or (collective gasp) Waterloo Records. I've really become enamored with the idea of the Zune Pass. Assuming that per year, there are more than 12 CDs I would ever want to listen to, $15 a month works out to be a good deal. I also feel it would be convenient to just download any music I want off the Internet, without stopping to pay the piper or whatnot. I could even load songs to my 60 gig (do they make a 60? apparently not yet) music player, and not really listen to them if I didn't want to. I could bask in the luxury of having access to music that I hadn't pared down to less than 200 songs. I could even try listening to entire albums by artists, shock of shock. Or just make multiple playlists for multiple occasions, and not really have to worry about space or cost of legality. Naturally, I could do all this with equipment and services that don't have the word "Zune" in the name, but somehow the Zune plan and Zune hardware and Zune software working together seems like it would produce fewer headaches.

I ran this idea by a friend of mine, and the first thing he told me was "the sharing thing is useless", like that's a big reason to go with an iPod instead. I'll agree with him, theres really no one else around with a Zune, and the "three listens in three days" limitation kinda bites, though I can see the rationale for it. Of course, the Zune Pass means that, mostly, the limitation doesn't apply to me (I'm already "renting" the song anyway), but really, either way, I don't care about sharing. My question to him remains, though, how does a bad sharing plan make the Zune worse than something with no sharing plan at all? Surely the advantages must be noted that, though its currently a useless feature, the Zune does have WiFi connectablitly. And, for the same price as an equal sized iPod, I can see myself investing in the POTENTIAL of this magic uplink protocol.

The dream scenario, of course, is this: I'm walking through the mall at some point in the not so distant future, and a song plays over the intercom that I enjoy. I pull out my Zune, connect to the hypothetical mall's hypothetical wireless network, and transfer the song (or indeed, the whole album, and possibly other works in the artist's discography) directly to my Zune, adding it to my shuffle list, where it will pop up randomly and surprise me.

Speaking of added features, the thing also has a radio receiver. And it's got a widescreen (tallscreen?) display. I suppose the only possible downside to the device over Apple's offering is the Microsoft branding, but I've even found myself looking at the X-Box 360 with lusty eyes, and I've resigned myself to buying a new computer with Vista in the future. Microsoft may be evil, but they're good at being evil, so who am I to judge?

As near as I can tell, the only advantage the iPod has over the Zune, other than Kleenex level brand recognition, is the fact that iPods do not come in BROWN. iPods, like most other Apple devices, come in either black or white, or a Starburst-like assortment of colors if you buy one of the nano or mini or electron microscope models. The Zune launched in three colors, differentiating itself from the competition. They chose the iPod mimicing Ivory White; the edgy and cool Charcoal Black; and a color that can only be described as TURD BROWN. Seriously, BROWN electronics? Even disregarding the fact that it's the color of excrement (and it really is, shade and everything, like if you'd passed a white Zune through your colon), since when are we making brown machines? They didn't even do that when we were using real wood for cases. We painted them, so it wasn't brown. I mean, when you're rushing to compete with a product that defines an industry, you shouldn't make the case that your product is comparable to poop FOR THE ENEMY. Leave that to your half assed Wi-Fi implementation, please.

By the way, I picked up The WarSun Prophecies, the third book of Penny Arcade compilations, so this post may have been channeling my inner Tycho. I love the way the guy writes. And heck, he's even one of the more vocal independant (i.e. not Bill Gates) fans of the Zune.

But seriously, I got the idea to get one on my own, because the display model at work taunts me.

Uncomfortable Questions

So I found this awesome article online. Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job? I couldn't help but write a response (after I was prompted by my friend Dan to do so). The submissions form isn't working just now, but I thought I'd share my thoughts here:

Point by point here:

1) As anyone who's studied the Death Star blueprints will tell you, shielding something as large as a small moon is no easy task. Without a planetary based shield, the best you can do is a wide mesh of shielding, which will deflect most large turbo-laser blasts, and prevent ramming from any capitol-class ships. Unfortunately, at a scale as large as the Death Star, the magnetic has holes in it large enough for a snub-fighter to barely squeeze through, with maybe a little "bouncing"

2) Grand Moff Tarkin's over-confidence is legendary. His last recorded words on the station are of him turning down an offer to evacuate the station, even after top advisors aboard had discovered a flaw (see point 8). If it had been an inside job, and he was aware of the station's impending doom, wouldn't he have evacuated long before someone had ever thought to ask him? The delay in launching fighters was merely his own arrogance, and discounting the rebel threat as weak and insignificant. There is also evidence that he and (fleet command) Admiral Motti were not on the best of terms.

3) The individuals in Storm Trooper uniforms have easily been identified as the Rebels themselves, wearing stolen uniforms. There are numerous photographs of them with their helmets removed. They had been lured on board by the presence of Ambassador Princess Leia Organa, who was proving un-useful for interrogation. The Ambassador's dipomatic immunity ruled out execution as an option, so she was allowed to escape, and then she was tracked back to the true location of the rebel base.

4) The allegations that Darth Vader and former Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker are one and the same are completely unfounded. Sure, it's easy to make the claim that since you can't see his face, he must be the famed rogue Jedi Knight of the Republic, but any hard evidence about the Jedi died away in the purge. Any investigation into the Jedi Order during a time of war would be a gross misuse of resources.

5) Contrary to popular belief, Lord Vader's TIE fighter was not unshielded. It may have been the most heavily armored and armed one man fighter in the Yavin System that day. Also remember that Vader's primary role in the Imperial command structure was not an administrative one; he has been recognized numerous time for his willingness and capability in the heat of battle. Remember, this is the man who has been refered to as "The best starpilot in the Galaxy." Who better to lead the defense against the rebel forces?

6) Depending on your religious views, this was either an incredibly lucky shot, or one that was divinely guided. I really can't say more than that for fear of offending readers.

7) Again, this claim relies on the idea of point 4, that Darth Vader is truly Anakin Skywalker. Without that link, there are no papers documenting that Vader ever encountered the droids.

8) Finally, I need only refer you to the Death Star blue prints. The "two meter port" you mentioned in point 6 was the primary exhaust port for the Death Star, leading straight into the central core of the station. The missile obviously set off a chain reaction, a huge series of explosions that rocked the entire station until eventually detonating the main power core. As you can see on the newly released and cleaned up footage of the explosion, there is a bright ring emanating from the equator of the Death Star, similar to the one you see if your speeder's power core were to explode, only on a much larger scale.

Obviously, all the facts available back up the official story: the Death Star was destroyed by rebel terrorists. However, and interestingly enough, if one were to accept that Lord Vader were in reality Anakin Skywalker, and that the rebel known as Luke Skywalker is his son, then the case could be made that Vader set up the attack as an attempt to eliminate the higher-ups in Imperial command and get a promotion for himself. I look forward to seeing what Vader does with his newly appointed command ship, the Executor.

From what I could see, the original article was written from the point of view of an average Imperial citizen, or possibly an underground news reporter (I can't imagine that the Empire has free speech), and so my response was written from a similar point of view.

In other news, last night I got together with a bunch of classmates from Japanese to help each other complete the workbook. When we realized exactly the scope of that project, we decided it would be easier to just photocopy the pages we all needed. After test printing off two random pages (one twice, because two people needed it) we decided to just start off at the front and work our way through the book. Before we started THAT endeavor (btw, we need close to 124 pages done by Monday), we remembered that the teacher had given us an answer key for at least the first few pages. We decided to pull out the packet and see just how far the key went, so we'd know when to start. At about that point, we noticed that the guide actually had ALL the answers we needed, so copying the pages was just a waste of time and money, and we called it a night.

What's the point of that story? I dunno. Self-depreciation, I guess. I just found it an interesting little adventure.

Gah, I don't have time to write about how random and pointless this blog is... Maybe later, if you're lucky.