Justin du Coeur

Windows users should probably take a look at this article before installing iTunes 8. Summary: this innocuous-looking update to iTunes is actually 80 Meg, and does all kinds of hacking on your system -- it even installs new device drivers without telling you. And those device drivers aren't particularly stable: there are apparently a number of reports of folks getting the Blue Screen of Death when they activate. (Which is pretty hard nowadays -- the days when BSODs were common are, thankfully, past.)

It sounds like Apple released iTunes 8 under the gun (presumably it got scheduled around Jobs' speech the other day), and didn't QA it enough. And since, as has become typical of Apple, it's doing way more to your computer than it's telling you about, that's dangerous.

I'm curious about the new "Genius" features, but I think I'll wait for iTunes 8.1...

[Happy birthday to fairdice!]

The only advantage of msmemory's crazy OES schedule is that, since it's leaving me so at loose ends, I'm starting to get out and about more. Today I crashed the first meeting of the Tufts SFS (they were watching Dr. Horrible), which was a good reminder of why I enjoy hanging out with boroughs. It was a great meeting (looks to me like the club is going to double in size this year), and we all went out for ice cream and geeking afterwards. I don't have that many open Thursdays, but I hope to be able to at least get to the occasional movie -- it's a fun bunch of folks.

In general, opening my social horizons back up again is proving *very* good for my head. I've lately let myself fall into ruts: seeing people, but not often enough and not enough variety. I think my resolution for this season is going to be fixing that -- getting out more, in more circles. Which is, by and large, just getting back to what I have often thought of as normal when I've been happiest. There is life outside dance practice...

... back to back, no less.

First, there was the second of the new Microsoft ads. Any hopes that the first incredibly cryptic and strange ad would be quickly followed by something that makes more sense were quickly dashed. Points for sheer surrealism, but an entire series of strange buddy-movie ads starring Seinfeld and Gates doesn't look promising in any respect save that it gets people talking about Microsoft. (In the sense of "have they finally lost their minds?".) I'm still vaguely curious whether they're actually *going* somewhere with this -- but I'm getting less curious rapidly.

And then there was the ad for The Day the Earth Stood Still. Starring Keanu Reeves. I wish I was kidding. Truth to tell, it might even be a decent movie -- but it looks like it is, at best, loosely related to the original (all the stuff-blowing-up makes me twitch), and my sheer annoyance that it *claims* to be a remake is going to make it harder to enjoy it on its own merits. I really wish they'd simply make new movies with new names, without claiming that they're remakes of movies that didn't need to be remade...