There’s too much going on today to just cover one topic…

• Happy birthday to TGW contributer Jason (TheLisnakFactor). He is now the official TGW tech question responder guy, so send him some questions!
• Happy 10th birthday Dreamcast; the defunct Sega gaming console. Oh Dreamcast… your graphics were so good, controller was freaking odd, and your games were unfathomably easy to pirate. Thems were the good ole days.

The wire coming out of the back of the controller was never a good idea.

• Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple announced a lot of iPod related things that didn’t excite me enough to write something original.
• DC Comics is going through some drastic changes… really it’s a corporate enema.

I am back from my adventures in Costa Rica. It was an incredible trip, but I will have more on that later.

I’m still catching up with my life which pressed forward in spite of my absence, so this will be a short one.

Here’s a video from Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy titled, “Things You Never Hear.” Pay close attention to “Things You Never Hear #3,” and keep in mind that I actually wrote yesterday’s post about two weeks ago.

In other geek news, a fan created this fake trailer for a Green Lantern movie staring Firefly and Dr. Horrible’s Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan. The trailer is cheesy yet cool.

I’m rooting for a Green Lantern movie staring Fillion… dare I say, Joss Whedon could direct it.

Microsoft is attacking Apple with another wasted commercial:

As of June 2008 (a year ago), Apple had sold about 163 million iPods:

As of May 2008, Microsoft had sold 2 million Zune Mp3 players.

Zune has been a lost cause since launch. Trying to outflank Apple by labeling Zune as the cheaper alternative will only damage Microsoft’s brand and reputation (as I pointed out before).

I do want to see Microsoft put up an intelligent fight (although I am not sure why I care).

Please Microsoft, pick better battles.

Last week President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod with 40 show tunes as a gift.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that the President probably violated the iTunes terms of service as a result of giving her the gift. At the very least it is incredibly ambiguous.

I took a look at the terms of service for myself and they are absolutely correct that there seems to be no real answer about who owns the music after a user pays for it.

I recommend reading the original EFF post because it clearly explains the problems and ambiguity with our current intellectual property laws. Any attempt to improve upon their post would be a total waste of your time and mine.

This just goes to show you how ill-equipped our legal system is for present and future technology.

"YES WE CAN accidentally violate ambiguous terms of service agreements!"

I am exhausted far beyond my capacity for rational thought (which is rare even with the limited sleep I allow myself). With that in mind I am going to relay a public service announcement from regular TGW reader and fellow blogger pochp:

Keep a hardcopy of the serial number for your big ticket electronic devices (laptop, cellphone, iPod, etc). If they are stolen you are going to want to report the theft with a serial number. 

The odds of retrieval aren’t great, but having the serial number can help. It would also help with an insurance claim.

pochp’s blog is called Plato on-line.

I spent most of this past week visiting my younger brother in Arizona. On the flight back I had the great fortune to sit two seats away from an extraordinarily loud and obnoxious man. He happened to work in the same field that I do and claimed that he had great success… and oh boy was he a talker, and that’s coming from a guy who can talk your ear off. Seriously, the guy didn’t shut up until he passed out halfway through the flight. 

Wave to Eddie!

His many angry and inescapable monologues which he directed at me included everything from career advice, to his wife’s “excessive spending habits” (she sitting between us… I cannot tell you how awkward that was), to how “women are destroying the workplace,” to his rage over having to turn his cellphone off during air travel.

In an effort to cope with this guy’s schmucky, misogynistic diatribes I started to write this post in my mind. He was upset that he couldn’t use his cellphone on the plane (among many other things).

If I though that he would have listened I would have explained to him that the reason portable electronics aren’t allowed during takeoff and landing is because there is a concern that they could interfere with communications systems (which are crucial during takeoff and landing). There doesn’t seem to be any conclusive studies that confirm that electronics pose a threat to communications systems, however the FAA and Congress feel that on the outside chance they can cause a problem, it is better to annoy passengers for the first 20 and last 10 minutes of a flight by making them turn everything off instead of crashing a plane and killing everyone on board.

As far as the general cellphone ban on airplanes is concerned, it seems to have more to do with a general dislike of cellphone yappers in close quarters. This issue is still up for political debate. Personally, I think there are enough annoyances on flights: the screaming baby, the guy who hasn’t bathed in a week, the kid who keeps kicking your seat, or the ass who won’t stop ranting at you. I don’t really want to add the self-important business person who can’t put down his/her phone, or the chatty teenybopper who can’t sever the connections with her BFF during a flight to the list of “people you don’t want to sit near.” But that’s just me.

To answer the question of safety, I doubt that anyone’s Nintendo DS, cellphone, iPod, or laptop will bring down an airliner. If that were the case, it probably would have already happened. Plenty of people forget to turn these devices off or they turn on in your bag or pocket. So rest easy, your phone isn’t going to make the plane crash.

For more on this, you can read WiseGeek.

If you are in the market for a new iPod, here’s the skinny on the new iPod Shuffle.

It’s small. Really, really small.

It weighs 0.38 ounces, which is apparently “only 10% more than a single sheet of letter-sized paper” (Engadget), and has a storage capacity of 4 GB.

It's not much bigger than your earbuds.

The iPod Shuffle has no display screen or built in buttons. It tells you what is playing by speaking it into your headphones in a robotic voice. You can control the iPod with a three button controller built into the headphones. Sadly, headphone makers will have to get a license from Apple to make their devices compatible. In my opinion, this is a deal breaker for two reasons.

1. I don’t want to buy new headphones. I like mine.
2. I refuse to encourage Apple’s heavy handed control of everything they touch.

Do you have a burning desire to “one up” everyone with an iPod? I know I don’t.

If you are the kind of person who wants to get a Motorola Aura, this might appeal to you. 

Elton has released a line of Swarovski crystal encrusted iPods… and yes, they are fabulous.

I should also point out that there are no bad intentions here (even if I can’t help but make fun of this item). Proceeds from the sale of these iPods go to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. 

If you want one for whatever reason, you can get one here. They are available in nine different colors. 

For the last two days, I can’t seem to browse the Internet without seeing a post or story about President-Elect Obama’s use of a Zune Mp3 player.

In case you are unaware, the Zune is Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s iPod which was initially released in late 2006. The simple fact that I am defining what the Zune is should tell you that it hasn’t done so well against the iPod in terms of market-share.

After two days, and far too many postings on “Zunegate” (Can you believe how easy it is to get a “gate” these days? I means seriously people get a grip), it turns out that Obama actually uses an iPod.

In the end I am forced to ask, “Why the hell has this become an issue that anyone cares about?” That isn’t a rhetorical question. I really want to know if anyone has an answer that makes any sense. With all of the real problems going on in the world why is an Mp3 player, or the breed of dog that the Obama’s purchase such a big deal?

I just don’t get it.