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Friday, January 9, 2009

Tech The Week in Geek

Posted by Anthony Hecht on Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 11:40 AM

Free the Music - Apple to remove DRM from all music on iTunes. Now you can play your iTunes-purchased tracks on your Zune! Oh, except your Zune broke.

In other DRM news, the FTC is having a Town Hall meeting in March about DRM, wherein they will surely take the concerns of regular people very seriously, and ignore the desires of the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry.

Afraid of the Light - That multi-billion dollar entertainment industry? Pussies. RIAA fights effort to broadcast file-sharing trial on the web.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King - Apple CEO Steve Jobs posts uncomfortably personal letter assuring the world he's not dying. T-shirts are produced. Apple's stock price still drops.

Trade Shows! - My god, two consumer electronics trade shows in one week!? Ooh, look at all the amazing new cameras, USB hubs, TVs, SD cards (I KNOW!), digital photo frames, sewing machines and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I hereby embargo the use of the phrase "hands-on" for the rest of the year. You heard me.

One actually interesting new product among all the dreck - The Palm Pre is getting glowing initial HANDS-ON reviews. iPhone killer? I predict: no.

The 21st Century President - Almost-President Obama is fighting with the Secret Service to keep his Blackberry. Until now, Presidents have had to give up email while in office, for fear of the public finding out what the President is up to. Obama, like any normal person, doesn't understand how to deal with his life without email.

Obamamobile - The new Cadillac One presidential limo is revealed. It's rocket-proof, chemical attack proof, and comes stocked with Obama-compatible blood and integrated tear gas cannons. 8 MPG.

Burger King (seriously) creates the most useful Facebook app yet - It's Whopper Sacrifice! Install the app, delete 10 Facebook friends, FREE WHOPPER! As a bonus, you get to stop being aware of what cute things the kids of people you never talked to in high school are doing.

And finally, some exciting Microsoft news. Despite rumors of massive layoffs, those wild Redmond kids are still reaching for new heights of marketing horribleness. The following is, I dare say, the most amazingly terrible thing that's ever been done by anyone, ever. No, not the public beta of Windows 7, it's worse. And it's real, I swear.

Command of the Day:
svn st | grep ? | sed ’s/^?[\t]*//;’ | xargs svn add

Eternal thanks to Week in Geek tipper John for the Songsmith link.

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Sigh. Look, I know I'm totally uncool and all, having a Zune (there are 3 iPods, 2 Zunes and an "iRiver Choat" in my house, but for both myself and my boyfriend, the Zune is the player of choice) but I do have to note that the Zunes hit by this bug all worked fine after 7:00 AM Eastern time on New Year's morning. Took mine to the gym that day, though it was not working on the 31st. Yeah, it sucked that they didn't take this into account, but, y'know, stuff happens.

Posted by Nora on January 9, 2009 at 11:46 AM

I can't believe that Songsmith would neglect such hep and happening sounds as the Fox Trot or the Bossa Nova.

Seriously, that reminds me of nothing so much as those old electric organs from the 60s and 70s that came with their little electric beat boxes. Like Chopsticks could be improved with as a waltz...

Posted by Chris B on January 9, 2009 at 11:50 AM

I like grep better.

That said, at least Obama knows how to read.

Posted by Will in Seattle on January 9, 2009 at 11:56 AM

A professional jingle composer uses his daughter's music toy to create a corporate musical identity. The state of composition in america.

And "Bosses?" One isn't enough in corporate america.

This video makes me want to rip my arms off and beat my face in.

Microsoft, you lose. Gah!@

Posted by john on January 9, 2009 at 12:01 PM

Re the microsoft thing - I wonder if they retain the copyright on the music created by the software. You sing a great song, it creates great music, then they sue you when you get a record deal?

Posted by Songsmith on January 9, 2009 at 12:02 PM

Re: The Obamamobile

What? No flame throwers, machine guns, rocket launchers, oil slick dispensers, water cannons or ejector seats?

The geniuses in whatever rates as the Secret Service's version of Q Branch are really slacking off...

Posted by COMTE on January 9, 2009 at 12:05 PM

No wonder MS is having layoffs. Wow.

Posted by A on January 9, 2009 at 12:06 PM

I am so confused.
Where's the girl's other dad?
Who is that women in the man's kitchen and why is she there?
What about the that young dark stranger in the coffee shop?
"Miles, whadya have fo us."
"Well, I used to open up the closet door."

Posted by thank goodness Redmond is safe on January 9, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Where the hell ARE the glow-in-the-dark towels? Like the goddamn flying cars, the Jetsons had them forty years ago! Where are mine?

Posted by Dr_Awesome on January 9, 2009 at 12:11 PM

I want to see the Songsmith demo featuring Diamonda Galas.

Posted by E on January 9, 2009 at 12:14 PM

I made it to 32 seconds of that video, and then I shat out my own liver.

Posted by The Cap'n on January 9, 2009 at 12:17 PM

The video sucks, but I tried Songsmith and it is fucking awesome. Def. the coolest thing MSFT has made in maybe forever.

Posted by meks on January 9, 2009 at 12:28 PM

Microsoft yet again proves that with their software and very little effort you can make something really crappy and believe that it's as good as something made by someone with talent and professional tools (see Front Page, Movie Maker, Word, the list goes on...)

Posted by Al on January 9, 2009 at 12:35 PM

That command is piped to grep, Will.

In the future, all music will be made with Songsmith. Even I would buy it if it had Bossa Nova on it -- greatest beat ever.

Posted by Fnarf on January 9, 2009 at 12:43 PM

Best coverage of trade shows is from G4TV (which is my link for this post)

Posted by Will in Seattle on January 9, 2009 at 12:44 PM

Almost-President Obama is fighting with the Secret Service to keep his Blackerry

worst typo ever?

Posted by mackro mackro on January 9, 2009 at 12:51 PM

Is that Sumit in the commercial? OMG it is!

Posted by NaFun on January 9, 2009 at 1:12 PM

@11, thanks for the heads up, I'm still using mine. Think I'll skip it.

Posted by Liver-User on January 9, 2009 at 1:19 PM

nope the network security video i watched today was the most terrible thing microsoft has ever done. hands down.

Posted by the Uke on January 9, 2009 at 1:20 PM

"Obama's seat has an executive package. . ."

ROFL

Gawd, I'm a 12yo boy today.

Posted by violet_dagrinder on January 9, 2009 at 1:23 PM

You added all new files to SVN... do I get a cookie? I just use TortoiseSVN's commit dialog, though :).

#3, I don't think grep can pull something out of the matched line like he did with awk.

Posted by w7ngman on January 9, 2009 at 1:47 PM

I couldn't stop watching and now I may be irrevocably damaged. I'm still hurting. They could make some money with that thing if they sold an antidote for the poor people who watched it.

Posted by Charles on January 9, 2009 at 2:09 PM

Obama, like any normal person, doesn't understand how to deal with his life without email

This may be the best sentence I have read all day.

Posted by Original Monique on January 9, 2009 at 2:12 PM

What is it that the folks at Microsoft actually DO???

I mean, besides imposing a tax every couple years for a new, useless, and harder-to-use softwarre?

Posted by gk on January 9, 2009 at 2:17 PM

"Microsoft, eh? So it's pretty easy to use?"

Posted by Big Sven on January 9, 2009 at 2:39 PM

Piping is just another way of saying OMFG i broke the symbolic link because someone didn't install your nutter package on my build so you're script must die.

Seriously, go raw and just bitwise the command.

Posted by Will in Seattle on January 9, 2009 at 2:53 PM

yeah, my zune is fine, but thanks for your concern.

Posted by sara on January 9, 2009 at 3:42 PM

I haven't used subversion for a while, but can't you just svn add .? Or git svn clone and just go from there? :p

Posted by jasonsewall on January 10, 2009 at 7:21 AM