Monday, January 29, 2007

Brutal!

Weird Al “Interviews” Kevin Federline. Ouch!

DRM Doom

What appears to be the first of many such moves, Norway has declared the Apple Digital Rights Management (DRM) illegal.

In a bold move against iTunes’ DRM, called Fairplay, the Norwegian Consumer Council has deemed it illegal in Norway, with France and Germany possibly following suit.

Norway isn’t happy with Apple’s DRM technology that restricts play of files downloaded from it’s iTunes Store to only iPods [when away from the computer]. Because other portable players are not allowed to play the files, Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon has declared Apple’s Fairplay technology is anything but.

“I understand that a company feels the need to protect its products from piracy,” said Thon in 2006. “However, this should not negatively affect customers who through lawful means have obtained downloaded files. Today, iTunes´ use of DRM-technology renders the customers without rights in dealing with a company which on a whim can dictate what kind of access customers will have to products they have already paid for.”

Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of this and the end of the dreaded DRM. I agree with their logic here. DRM is a rip off. 

Friday, January 19, 2007

A More Accurate Climatologist

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Star Wars Screen Tests

These are pretty good

Part 1

Part 2

Bunny Suicides

Here’s a very strange, but morbidly funny comic strip series. Bunny Suicides.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

What Happened After The Death Star Blew Up

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Racist Cartoons

Too Old to be Cool has a review of the new Warner Brothers Cartoon boxed set which thankfully doesn’t have PSAs on every disc by Whoppi Golberg like Volume three did, telling us about the racially insensitive cartoons of the 40s. You had to sit through them on every disc. It was really annoying. Especially since it was coming from a woman who’s ex-boyfriend (Ted Danson) dressed up in blackface once as a joke.

Personally, I think many of those Warner Brothers cartoons weren’t racist, like this infamous one “All this and Rabbit Stew”. Yes, they replaced Elmer Fudd with a Steppin’ Fetchit imitation, but cartoons of the day made fun of popular characters in the media just like they do now. Modern Disney and Dreamworks cartoons (like Shrek) mock all kinds of movies and characters. Fetchit was a popular character back then and suitable for parody. At least Bugs sort of made friends with him at the end, unlike Fudd cartoon.

On the other hand, this Bob Clampett piece from around the same time , “Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarves” is pretty damn obnoxious. So obnoxious, I had tp laugh because it’s so wrong. But that’s the way Clampett cartoons were. He was into extreme exaggeration and weird sexual humor. It was Clampett who did most of the cartoons where Bugs seemed to like to dress up in drag.

If you look at black characters like Fat Albert, the differences aren’t many. So how is one racist and not the other? Because of the race of the cartoonist? Because of the stereotypes? The thing is cartoons are all about stereotypes. They are charactures, not meant to be real at all. They’re there to make us laugh at stuff. If the intentions aren’t mean spirited, I don’t think it should be called racist. Just in poor taste, as the Clampett cartoon is.

No one likes being the butt of a joke like that, but if race humor isn’t allowed then all those black comics who imitate lame white guys are racists? There shouldn’t be double standards.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Speedy Gonzales first cartoon

Song of the Day

Cheer up!

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Spiders on Drugs

If you haven’t seen this, it’s pretty funny.

Harry Potter Rap