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musicCrazy German Kid
January 24th, 2008A friend pointed me to this YouTube clip…Who say’s kids sacrifice exercise at the expense of video games? 4:35 is the oscar moment.
AllofMP3 down
December 20th, 2007
Well, after surviving several close calls, it looks like Russia’s AllofMP3 has finally caved in to RIAA pressure. The first scare was in the fall of 2006 but this turned out to be bogus and the site stayed up until at least April of 2007.
The second scare came shortly thereafter, around summertime. Each attempt to access their website returned an error message stating the site was closed for maintenance. However, when the AllTunes client was fired up, not only were usernames and passwords recognized, music catalogue searches and balance refills were still functioning. It seemed that those crafty, music-lovin’ Russian mobsters gave up the AllofMP3 domain name but never shut down their servers which the AllTunes client connected to via IP Address. Needless to say, I’m sure there were a few weeks of frenzied downloads in anticipation of the day AllofMP3 finally bit the dust.
Things became worse in the fall when users couldn’t refill their balance. It seemed that the RIAA and US Gov’t was slowly squeezing payment vendors - not only that, but selective ISP’s were blocking requests to AllOfMP3 servers.
Alas, the day of reckoning has finally come. Download attempts from AllofMP3 with the AllTunes client has no effect. Stupid RIAA. Don’t despair yet, from what information I have gathered, it looks like the AllofMP3 founders used a loophole to spawn a whole slew of replacement sites - stating that the original cease and desist was applicable only to existing sites and not new ones! That’s rich, the RIAA bitten by legalese. So, here is the silver lining in this dark tale. Of course, this is just for informational purposes - illegal downloading is evil and I don’t condone it at all.
It’s raining Chocolate!
September 14th, 2007Now usually such a statement would make me delirious with joy - HOWEVER - in this case, I was just plain confused. Should I laugh, was this some sort of ironic humor?
Watch at your own risk! I will not be held responsible when you find yourself constantly humming this melody, in the shower, on the metro, in your dreams!!! Arrggh, Chocolate Rain!
Now usually such a statement would make me delirious with joy - HOWEVER - in this case, I was just plain confused. Should I laugh, was this some sort of ironic humor?
E-mail stress keeps workers on edge of inbox
August 14th, 2007From the Times Online UK:
British workers are suffering “e-mail stress” because they are swamped with messages and constantly monitoring their inbox. Staff are left tired, frustrated and unproductive as they struggle to cope with a constant deluge of e-mails, researchers from Glasgow and Paisley universities have found.
More than a third said they thought they checked their inbox every 15 minutes and 64 per cent said they looked more than once an hour. When researchers fitted monitors to their computers, workers were found to be viewing e-mails up to 40 times an hour. About 33 per cent said they felt stressed by the volume of e-mails and the need to reply quickly. A further 28 per cent said they felt “driven” when they checked messages because of the pressure to respond. Just 38 per cent of workers were relaxed enough to wait a day or longer before replying.
Researchers found that many workers felt “invaded” by e-mails interrupting them as they tried to concentrate on their work. They felt pressured to switch applications to see whether the e-mails were urgent.
Female workers felt under greater pressure to respond than men. Karen Renaud, a computer scientist at Glasgow University, and Judith Ramsay, a psychologist at Paisley University, surveyed almost 200 workers. They concluded: “E-mail has become an indispensable tool in business. However, there is evidence that e-mail can exert a powerful hold over its users and that many computer users experience stress as a result of e-mail-related pressure.”
Ms Renaud said: “E-mail is the thing that now causes us the most problems in our working lives. It’s an amazing tool but it’s got out of hand.”
This is all quite interesting (nerve racking?) because just last week I noticed the very same thing happening to me. I was constantly checking my inbox for new emails and it was severely disrupting my concentration. I chalked it up to my job in IT but it looks like other folks are experiencing the same thing. I admit that at work I’m on the Type A side and I wonder how much that has to do with my ritualistic email checking? I’m thinking things might have been less stressful and time obsessed before computers. My only exposure to the office of yesteryear is through this show, and man do I wish it were 1960 all over again. What ever happened to Martini’s for lunch? I think I was born a generation too late.