Tonight everyone was against me until Tanner threw the spring at too close a distance, at which point I grabbed the spring and declared everyone was against Tanner. I chased him to the other side of the basement. I stood at one end, and he at the other in front of the basement door. I thought to myself if I throw the spring, and it bounces, it is definitely going to break the window on that door. However, I hoped that it would be a dud bounce, which often happens, simply sending the spring skidding across the floor in the direction it was thrown. It wasn’t a dud bounce. In fact, it was a perfect bounce. Had he not ducked, it would have hit Tanner right in the face. Instead of hitting him in the face, it shattered the window behind him.

That’s really all I’d like to say for now. God dammit.

"So wait, is that really James Cameron?" Click for full resolution.

Yes, yes my friend, I REALLY am James Cameron.

While I am here talking once again about Avatar, I will quickly share my opinion on the Oscars last night. Honestly, I couldn’t be more content and humble that The Hurt Locker won best picture. It is by far one of the best movies I have seen this year and its refreshing to see a low-budget independent once again get this well-deserved attention. Never before has a film made me feel so certain that at any minute I would be dead. The Hurt Locker is, from beginning to end, the most tense movie I have ever seen. The film captures perfectly the fear, paranoia, and claustrophobia I imagine would be constantly present in a war, even if it isn’t accurately portrayed. Furthermore it releases this tension in unexpected places at unexpected times. See it.

As for James Cameron’s loss to his ex-wife Katherine Bigelow for best director, I really think its a shame. Though The Hurt Locker may have been deserving of the Best Picture award, JC should have easily won best director. The passion and commitment he had to this project alone should have won him the award. For more than a decade he has dreamed that this movie would come to life, and finally, he brought it to life and the world loved it. Bigelow made a great film in 2009, but Cameron made a great film over the past decade. I really think the award should have gone to him. However, props to Cameron for taking the loss with such poise.

I do not share the opinion of most of the idiots on Avatar-forums.com that The Hurt Locker’s win was a government conspiracy… Jesus are they stupid.

I’ll start out by saying that modern technology is expanding the means and accessibility of creating art. Products like Garage Band, Logic, and Reason have evolved the way people write and produce music. No longer does a hopeful musician need to spend thousands on expensive instruments and recording studios which are now simulated digitally. Of course, there is value in live recording, but that does not lessen the value of music that is produced digitally. Similarly, digital video has made film-making a much more accessible art form. Digital video tapes and/or portable hard drives are endlessly less expensive than 16 mm or 35 mm film. The medium is different, but the art that is produced is still valuable, and the techniques still similar. Microsoft Gustav is now allowing a new generation of graphic artists to create beautiful and imaginative art digitally using traditional painting techniques.

This certainly won’t replace painting. However, for some, painting digitally may be more accessible than painting on canvas. Not everyone can afford expensive paints and canvases. A device like this would likely cost from $100-$500, a one time fee. Microsoft, though, is a software company – not a hardware company – so it is likely that this will be released as software to be used on existing computers, possibly touch screen tablets (which have just entered the mainstream), or as an inexpensive USB peripheral. For many art students looking to learn basic painting technique or experiment, this would be a valuable tool (which could be subsidized or purchased by schools and colleges). Additionally, this device, while it can replicate painting, also offers some new functionality. For instance, as demonstrated, you can zoom in and add detail you can’t add with conventional tools. There are certainly other applications for such a device or software which will be explored as it is made available.

Don’t undermine the beauty of art created digitally. If it looks the same as paint, then it can’t be said that its less beautiful. I will be the first to admit that there is something intrinsically valuable about genuine paint on canvas, but its still not fair to discount digital work, especially in a digital world. Its a lot like film vs. video – I may appreciate the way film looks, but I don’t discount a movie’s merits if its captured digitally. Additionally, like the case here, digital video is a lot less expensive to produce than film.

Replicating the painting experience with code takes an unimaginable knowledge of physics, computer science, and yes, art. Its a functionality that, until this product, hasn’t been available (at least in such an accurate, exact form) prior and is therefor, by definition, innovative. It is building off of already existing illustration and touch technology to create something new, something a step further. Innovation defined…. See More

As demonstrated in the video, this IS real painting. The technique – the forms and the methods of the artist, essentially the human part of creating art – is the same; its the medium that’s different.

For my class Intro to Chinese Philosophy, instructed by quite possibly the most awesome professor ever, one Dr. John Berthrong, we have been asked to write a book review of a book from a long list of books on Chinese Philosophy. I selected Confucian Political Ethics, which I expect to be a very interesting read. Obviously, of course, Barnes and Noble didn’t have it. Eager to read, I figured that having B&N order it from a partner store would be faster than getting it off Amazon, so I had them send away.

As expected, I got a call (Not an email? What is this, 1970?) letting me know the book was in. Today I biked over to the store to pick’er up. I took my gloves off, stuffing them in my backpack, as I walked over to the desk on the first floor. This is a book store, so as I walked, I practiced what I would say, wanting to use proper grammar. I decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate to say “where do you pick up a book you have ordered” because I didn’t want to know about her. So I decided that I would ask “where does one pick up a book one has ordered from another store?” Perfect.

There was another customer in line in front of me looking for some book they may or may not have. I patiently got in line behind him. Just as she was about to venture out to look for the book he wanted, she addressed me:

“Oh did you have a quick question or…”
“Oh thanks, yeah just a quick question.”
“Sure.”
“Where would one pick up a book one has ordered from another store?”

She looked at me slightly confused, so I clarified, wondering if my proper English had thrown her off.

“Like because they didn’t have it here…”
“Oh okay.”
“Yeah!”
“Oh well we don’t usually do that…”

This is where I started to get annoyed. It was just slightly insulting to my intelligence that after I have already told her I am here to pick up a book from another store she would doubt me, as if I had invented the story or something.

“Oh okay… but like… its here, so.”
“Oh, well what’s your last name?”
“Piccirillo”
“Hold on.”

She went to the closet behind her and in seconds produced the book I had ordered. Wow. Shockerrrrr.

“Okay well just wait a second and I’ll come check out out after I find his book,” she said, gesturing to the man beside me. She handed me the book and I waited.

A young man came up behind the desk and asked if we two customers were all set. The other said yes, but I let him know I was ready to check out. He  directed me to the adjacent register and I handed him the book.

As I was being checked out, the bitchy girl returned empty handed. Addressing the other customer:

“I’m sorry we don’t actually have the book in stock, or at least it isn’t where its supposed to be. But we can order it from another store if you like!”

WHAT! You just made me feel like an ass for having done just that. What’s your deal lady? Are you dumb or do you just like to be difficult?

I left the store with my new book happily tucked away before biking up to Newbury street with snow and wind whipping in my face without a jacket. I bet I looked like a super badass. After grabbing a pair of new shoes (Sophie told me a pair of Vans classics would make girls like me more… so… look out ladies), I stopped by the Kenmore McDonalds to enjoy a shamrock shake, arguably the best part of March. The guy who handed me my shake, a kind of awkward middle-aged man who I have shared short conversations with in the past, asked me how midterms were going, noticing the BU patch on my backpack, I assume. I don’t have any midterms because my classes are primarily essay based. Still, it was cute of him to try to relate to the younger generation. He wished me good luck on my essays; in fact he said he hopes I win a Nobel Prize. None of this is related to the title of the post, I just think its a cute little anecdote.

One additional side-note: the music in McDonalds is fucking distracting when you’re trying to read Confucian philosophy.

It seems as if, for now at least, the story has come to an end: Jay retook the Tonight show Monday night. From most perspectives I have read, people feel the same way about Jay now as they did when he was on at ten and when he was on at 11:30 the first time: he just offers nothing new. I watched the first five minutes of the show on Hulu; what an uninspiring five minutes they were.

Lame.

No one, however, seems to detest Jay Leno and his boring, old, unoriginal non-style as Howard Stern who spoke out against the once-again Tonight Show host on the CBS Early Show this week. Stern accuses him of being a pawn of NBC, as well as a greedy thief. Watch below:

Honestly, I’m all for renaming it the Boston University Howard Stern College of Communication.

From Radar Online via Digg.

Joel Tenenbaum

It is no surprise that you may not know who Joel Tenenbaum is, so I will explain. The explosion of the Internet in the 1990s gave a generation of tech-savvy teenagers unprecedented access to free and open music, movies, and software. File sharing, which rose to prominence with Peer2Peer (P2P) clients such as Napster, Kazaa, and Grokster, seemed to be part of the natural evolution of the Internet, and most importantly, everyone did it. People rightfully recognize the moral distinction between stealing a CD from a store and from clicking a button to download a song for free; in one case, a physical item is removed so that another consumer cannot purchase it, whereas in the other, a file is copied and distributed. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), however, felt differently. Since the late nineties, this corporate giant has brought some 40,000 civil suites against their OWN CUSTOMERS who participated in online file-sharing. Most settled before going to trial, awarding the RIAA whopping sums in the thousands for downloading songs for free. Joel Tenenbaum is one of very few (only three exist that I know of) former copyright-infringing file-sharers to go to trial rather than succumb to the bullying of a multi-billion dollar industry group. That trial, which ended a few months ago, left Joel with an outrageous, in my opinion unconstitutional, fine of $675,000.

Essentially, Joel Tenenbaum is one of three people to stand up for our persecuted, prosecuted generation and our non-violent, non-criminal non-crimes.

I shared this sentiment with Joel today when I had the pleasure of meeting him following an introduction, a short lecture from him, and a Q&A with his Harvard lawyer Charles Nesson at the BU School of Law. Joel, a BU graduate student, was taken aback and insisted that he is no hero, just a normal student who studies across the river. But I insisted, letting him know how important his refusal to be bullied means to our generation. It was fucking awesome.

Joey and Chuck.

Equally awesome was the Q&A with famed Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson. I will be completely honest: I knew I was going to be blogging about this event, but I assumed that within my  blog I would attribute Joel’s botched trial to Mr. Nesson’s age and unfamiliarity with technology. I want to apologize for my obvious ageism because, honestly, despite his 71 years, Mr. Nesson is a shrewdly intelligent man with an acute awareness of the technological world, its history, and the culture surrounding it. I won’t try to summarize his extremely effective question and answer session, but I would like to provide a couple bullet points from it which just highlight the circumstances surrounding the trial and demonstrate what a raw deal Joel got:

• Fair use argument: It was originally Nesson’s plan to present an interesting variation of the fair use argument. Essentially what he intended to argue was that, at the time, the RIAA was putting out CDs with no digital rights management (DRM) and effectively provided the raw, unprotected files that formed the basis for P2P which allowed them to be uploaded to the Internet and shared with peers to begin with. Furthermore, at the time, there was no comparable product to the free instantly-accessible online music people downloaded via P2P. Enter iTunes. iTunes, when it was first launched, charged $0.99 per DRM protected song. What DRM on a file essentially means is that a file cannot be used anywhere except for on iTunes and on an iPod, in this case. Nesson argues that this is an inferior good; why would someone pay for an inferior good when they can get a superior good, an open file, for free? Good argument. I am not sure if all of that fell under his fair-use plan, however, I will share that we learned that it wasn’t until something like 1:42 am the morning before the trial that the judge informed the legal team that she would not hear a fair-use defense. Wow.
• The whole-sale price for a song, as claimed by Nesson, is $0.70. Therefore, he calculates, at most, Joel should be responsible for $21.00 in damages for the 30 songs he is accused of downloading. Nope. He is expected to pay $675,000.
• No jurors who had admittedly downloaded a song via a P2P client were allowed to serve on the jury. The youngest juror was 35 years old. Essentially, then, the jury was picked from a generation of people who don’t really understand what it means to illegally download a song via such a client; a generation of people whose knowledge of the Internet in general is quite cursory.
• The jury was told to name a penalty as much as $150,000 per song. As Nesson explained, this number was established back in the day when, for instance, the controversy with Vanilla Ice and his song “Ice Ice Baby” was happening. Such enormous fines were never meant to end up being handed down to kids like Joel. So, the jury actually thought they were being lenient by charging Joel with $22,500 per song, for a total of $675,000.
• Finally I’ll mention, as Nesson did, that Joel is a BU graduate student. He doesn’t have $675,000. It’s an unimaginable amount of money to expect him to pay, and frankly, no one expects him to. He is being made an example of. If they can’t get a new trial or get the penalty reduced, he’ll simply file for bankruptcy and injure his financial future.

Professor Nesson had a lot more to say, but I want to get to what I want to say. Frankly, the music industry as it is currently set up, is unsustainable. The Internet makes it so incredibly easy to access content like music for free that there is little to no incentive to continue purchasing it. Of course, many people, myself included, like to have a physical CD or vinyl in hand as a kind of keepsake, and that is all well and good. However, in most cases now, music will be accessed for free or for a small fee via the Internet. And I honestly think that is the way it should be. Yes, people should be paid for their work, but, in most cases, their fortunes don’t come from CD sales. Most of that money either goes to the recording company and, in some cases, Apple, when the songs are sold through iTunes. Musicians make most of their money from touring and merchandise. So what I am saying is cut out the middleman. Abolish the RIAA. Downsize the recording industry. Put the control and responsibility of art back in the hands of the artist. Additionally I will say that if our generation’s habit of downloading music makes musicians lives less glamorous lives, good. No one should feel bad about pilfering dimes at a time from the pockets of the world’s super-rich super stars. Support artists, yes, but honestly, look at their lives compared to the lives of their customers. Should there really be that divide, especially when so many of them are so talentless? I don’t think so.

At any rate, thank you Joel, and I am sorry that you are being held responsible for the behavior of an entire generation.

Dick.

Please note the half empty bike rack just a few yards back. I get that its raining, but your bike looks stupid anyways. A bit of rust should be the least of your worries

Tonight I got the following mysterious text from a stranger with a Trenton, New Jersey number:

Hey I saw your blog freshman denial and you looked really good and you had a really interesting take on avatar. I was wondering if I could get to know u?

Whoever this mystery texter is knows that complimenting my blog is a ticket to friendship with me. Intrigued but skeptical, I responded:

haha uhh. whose this? howd you get my phone number? i sense a trap.

A couple minutes passed without response, so I clarified in case the mystery texter misinterpreted my tone:

didnt mean for that to sound overly suspicious, just curious.

Still no response. I’m not about to let this little mystery slip away, so I pry further:

your area code tells me you’re from new jersey. the mystery begins to come full circle. howd you hear about my blog?

Finally Captain Mystery musters a response:

I got it from one of your friends, I just think you and me would be really compatible

Woah. At this point I am fully engaged in the game this stranger has wrapped me up in, but also in complete WTF mode. I suppose there are two possibilities: a hot girl who totally wants it, or a rapist who is going to murder me Glenn Beck style. Who is this person?

hmm. thats really interesting. which friend, if you don’t mind me asking? whats your name?

No response to that. Apparently both of those questions were off limits. How about this:

do you go to BU?

Apparently that question was answerable, but the response took this from kind of weird to fucking really weird:

Yes to bu and sorry im a pathological liar I didnt read ur blog i just thought you were interesting

At this point I am obviously furiously wondering who this mysterious New Jersyite is and what they want with me. Of course I am holding out for a hot girl, but I mostly assume that its a prank from a friend. I don’t really mind the fact that Captain Mystery lied, but its just a tad bit strange, especially because that means they know me in some other way. I respond:

haha uhh thats fine. hmm. have me (sic) met in real life? this is very intriguing.

The next response is by far the strangest, and by far the most damning evidence for this being a prank of some sort. Either that, or my soul mate has introduced herself via text message, but that seems doubtful. Enjoy this little chiller:

I feel like we’ve met in another life…

I’ll let the admiral take over for just a moment:

Yeah... I think so too.

I respond, onto their scheme:

haha okaaay whats goingg on here? im not falling for this trickery. whats your name?

As you can imagine, at this point of the mystery, prolonged not knowing becomes frustrating. So after a few minutes of silence from the mystery texter, I shot them a phone call. A quick answer and an even quicker hang up. What the hell is going on.

uuh. why did you  hang  up? this mystery need solving.

No response. I call a couple more times and get a couple more hang ups. Finally I call and it rings till voice mail. God dammit. No name, just “the number is not currently available.” Annoying. One final text:

the strangeitude of this is high. and your radio silence is only augmenting my level of intrigue.

And that is where this story ends. I called once or twice more, but no answer. No responding text message. If whoever you were reads this… uhh… well first of all I hope it doesn’t dissuade you from talking to me. I also hope you’re not a crazy person. Umm. Who are you? Weird.