Semester 1 Assignments Complete + Weird Weird News
June 11, 2011Well, I’ve finished all my assignments for Semester 1 and minus the one exam I have for programming on June 28th, I’m on holidays from now until July 26th 🙂 Semester 1 has been a great start into university and Semester 2 is looking much more interesting in terms of content! With that small piece of information out of the way, it’s time to share with you things I’ve found on the internet this week that have amused or interested me in some way (You’ll be able to very quickly tell, I spend a lot of time on news websites).
Richard Dreyfuss Does A Dramatic Reading Of The iTunes EULA
This was pretty funny. There’s not really too much to explain here other than listen to them below (each uses a different voice).
Please Read
Responsibility
Damages
Effective Until
Source: http://www.cnet.com/8301-30976_1-20068778-10348864.html
Microsoft Gives Away Apple iPods As Prizes
This is a story which is about 3 years old now that I stumbled upon this week. If you don’t know, Microsoft sells their own brand of MP3 players called Zunes. They’re actually really really good music players and if you are a music enthusiast who loves listening to music, then this is the device you’d want to get over the iPod (sounds crazy, but it’s true). The thing is, these were (and still are) only sold in the US & Canada for some reason. While most of the functionality from these players have been moved into Windows Phone 7 which is available here in Australia, Windows Phone 7 wasn’t around back in 2008. So the story was essentially, that NineMSN (a 50% joint partnership between the Nine Network and MSN (The Microsoft Network) was giving away iPods as prizes to Australias who used Microsoft’s Live Search (now Bing). The Microsoft US response was obviously, “using competitor products was frowned on at Microsoft”. NineMSN hit back though with the very true statement that, “if the Zune music player was sold in Australia it would have been offered as a prize instead. Where we don’t have a great product or we don’t have a product at all there’s no internal edict that says we’re not allowed to use competitor products”.
That’s completely true, we don’t have the Zune here in Australia, it’s not NineMSN’s fault that’s the situation. While this story is completely irrelevant to what’s happening today, I bring it up, only because we’re fighting a similar battle at the moment, not to bring the Zune Hardware to Australia, but to bring the Zune services such as the Music Marketplace. This is one small example of how Microsoft is letting their competitors get the upper hand on them here in Australia simply by not bringing the services that are available in the US to Australia.
Swiss Radio Station Airs 5 Hours Of Pornographic Music & Sounds
I listen to lots and lots of radio, but this one really weirds me out. Apparently a Swiss Radio station has started a 5 hour radio show (from Midnight to 5am) which is described by the producer as “acoustic porn”.
News.com.au says “The show will play soundtracks from 1970s porn movies – which according to Mr Scotoni have more “value” than the “cheap music” in modern porn – along with disco classics such as Love To Love You Baby by Donna Summer.”
This just shouts out ‘weird’ to me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it rated highly in their ratings surveys in a few months time.
Politicians are poorly paid and deserve higher pay, says Labor MP Robert Schwarten
I’m not sure if too many of you are going to agree with this (I don’t), but he said it anyway. He thinks that politicians should be paid more money, because they’re getting less than high school principals. Politicians make $133,804 per year (which actually seems like a pretty good pay packet really), but what he failed to mention is, they get a really good superannuation deal and pension when they retire. So they’re definitely not going to be struggling when they retire from a financial perspective. If you check out the comments from the story, wow, this pollie gets absolutely reamed! Back in your box sir, and start to help get the state out of debt!
Canberra Has Australia’s Best Nightlife, Or So They’re Trying To Say?
This was just plain odd, but at the same time very very funny. If you’ve ever watch The Gruen Transfer, then you’ll know there’s a segment each week called “The Pitch” where 2 ad agencies battle it out to create ads to sell something that is just so stupid or unsellable (e.g Invading New Zealand etc.). Well there was an ad agency event this week (held in conjunction with The Gruen Transfer) that asked ad agencies to sell Canberra’s nightlife as the best in Australia. I prefer the second one best, but they’re both, very odd and very funny.
Woman pees from veranda, falls on picket fence, sues her ex
After reading this story, one thing comes to mind really: What’s wrong with the toilet, the inside one?…….
I think that’s all the posts I’ve got for this week. There’s a bunch of other weird stories including the St Kilda School story & the Pauline Hanson vote counting story that are just too weird and complex to go into so I’ll let you look them up yourself if you want. Leave comments as usual! Over & Out!
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