Day: October 26, 2001

Huh? I Thought He Was Supposed to be a Psychic?

I’m not sure why, but John Edward, the psychic featured on the SciFi channel’s “Crossing Over with John Edward” is someone who I can’t watch without experiencing intense feelings of disgust. So I was not surprised at all when his publicity people announced yesterday that Edward would attempt to contact the dead victims of the World Trade Center attack. In fact, I’m definitely not psychic, but back in September I told my wife that Edward would inevitably try to pull just such a stunt.

Today, though, the show’s distributors called off the planned show citing what it called “a reaction that none of us expected.” Huh? I thought this guy was supposed to be a psychic.

You should have seen it coming, John.

How Much Information Can the Universe Hold?

Via ArsTechnica comes an interesting paper (PDF) from Seth Lloyd attempting to estimate the maximum number of bits that could possibly be stored in the universe. The answer? Either 10^90 bits if you don’t take gravity into account, and 10^120 if you do take gravity into account.

Don’t worry though, I’m sure at some point Redmond is going to release an OS that will require an upgrade to the universe.

Collect the Entire “Enduring Freedom” Card Set

According to USA Today, Topps, the folks famous for their baseball cards, already have a 90-card “Enduring Freedom” trading card set out and in stores. The cards feature picutres and biographies of people like George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Osama bin Laden. Ugh. As if the Topps “Desert Storm” set wasn’t bad enough.

iPod, Copy Protection, and Why Can’t Slashdot Read a Specs Page?

This made me laugh today — Slashdot posted a correction claiming the iPod will ship with a 10 gig hard drive rather than a 5 gig hard drive as has been widely reported. Too bad they didn’t bother to read the technical specifications web page that Apple has up clearly noting that the unit will feature a 5 gig HD. Tell me again why I’d pay a subscription fee for such information.

This part didn’t make me laugh though. The New York Times confirms what The Register had suggested — the iPod will ship with copy protection which will prevent some, but not all copying. According to the Times,

Mr. Jobs said the company had taken some steps to protect against piracy in its device. For instance, he said, songs loaded onto the iPod from a Macintosh computer, cannot then be loaded from the device to a different Macintosh computer, a step he said would make it difficult for people to distribute music they own to other users.

As far as I can tell from reading between the lines, the iPod will work as a normal Firewire hard drive, but any MP3s transferred to the unit via iTunes will be placed in a special area of the hard drive where they cannot be transferred. MP3s can be copied onto the iPod using normal file copy methods, but those MP3s apparently cannot be played on the machine.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. This thing is scheduled for November, and I suspect someone will have a workaround for the copy protection before the New Year.

Who Gives a F— about New York When Elephants Are Being Killed?

British boy band Blue logged on to the web site of the British tabloid The Sun to promote their next single which is scheduled for release in the UK in November. Instead, band member Lee Ryan ended up making outrageous statements that the terrorist attacks didn’t deserve the intense media coverage, which should be devote to the plight of animals.

During the web chat, a fan asked why the group’s tour of Singapore had been cancelled. The group had actually been in New York and witnessed the second plane that hit the World Trade Center. After his band mates go on about the horror of watching that, Ryan goes off about elephants and whales:

Lee Ryan – What about whales?

They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and that’s more important.

This New York thing is being blown out of proportion.

Simon- Shut up Lee.

Lee – Who gives a f… about New York when elephants are being killed.

Duncan- Shut up.

Lee – I’m not afraid to say this, it has to be said. IÂ’m not afraid to say it and that’s why I’m the outspoken one from the band.

The group’s record label, Virgin Records, apparently raked Ryan over the coals for this obscene statement, and almost immediately an apology was posted on the group’s official web site. A statement attributed to Ryan says,

By now you might have heard about the stupid comments I made the other day to The Sun newspaper.

I just wanted to say to you all how sorry I am, I can’t believe I said it. I didn’t even mean it like that and the second I said it I was like “Oh My God” that isn’t what I meant.

All I can say is that since we got back from New York we have all been asked again and again about our experiences there and, to be honest, what we saw in New York was so bad that I’ve always tried to avoid talking about it.

He didn’t mean it? Give me a break. This has “cover your ass” all over it. Or as The Sun put it, “Lee may have apologized but he is 18, old enough to vote and to know better.”

Don’t worry, though, if Virgin should drop the group or his pop career goes south, he’s always got a career writing editorials for Animal People.

Sources:

Who give a **** about New York when whales and elephants are dying? Dominic, Mohan, The Sun, October 26, 2001.

Blue chat outrage. Jacqui Swift, The Sun, October 26, 2001.

Statement from Lee. Lee Ryan, PopGoss.Com, October 26, 2001.