To celebrate this new step of my life I also ordered an iPhone 4 online on Sunday, and it’ll be here tomorrow. Life is good.

After mulling it over for a while, I made the decision to completely discard what I had done so far and start anew, this time taking the branding into consideration. Yes, it was quite painful to just toss away hours of work (it took a while to get the borders right, and they still didn’t quite align), but it was a move that had to be made. Being a great designer doesn’t only mean making pretty layouts— it’s knowing when to discard parts of/entire designs if needed, for the purpose of making the end result even better. Sure, this is a step backwards in the redesign of Z-Up, but I think it’ll benefit it more in the long term.

Plus, having Z-Up look like an airmail envelope would be quite confusing to newcomers; they might associate Z-Up with email, because an envelope does not imply storage, whereas a box does.

However, as I worked in those environments, I came upon the realization that the reason some businesses haven’t upgraded from DOS is because it simply works. It doesn’t require a powerful computer, is very reliable, and workers can’t waste their time playing solitaire— because the systems only do one thing. For entering textual information, there just isn’t a better way than DOS. I spent a bit of time thinking about “better” solutions, and I honestly couldn’t think of any. Mac OS X and Windows are good for a multitude of uses, but when it comes to single-purpose machines, DOS is still relevant.

Plus, using a command line in DOS at work makes me feel all 1337.

The fourth of July has pretty much become “grill and get drunk day,” but hey at least the fireworks promise to be somewhat entertaining.

Typing this on my iPod Touch in the WordPress app while sitting in Hudson River Park with my girlfriend napping on my lap. Yay for free wifi.

I have a better idea for all those exercise fanatics out there— go to the nearest ghetto, shout a racial slur as loud as you possibly can, and run as fast as your lard legs will take you. While being shot at by dozens of angry ghetto people, weight loss will quickly disappear as a concern. Luckily for me, I never have to deal with it, because I can eat fast food all I want and still stay in my weight. 

I might be getting a job for the summer, which would be great, because I need some money. As my graduation gift, I’ll also be getting an iPhone 4. I was going to go get it on Monday, but instead I’ll wait until the screen and reception problems are fixed. Plus the 16gb iPhone is nearly out of stock, and I don’t feel like waiting hours in line. Guess I’ll just suck it up and wait another week or two.

Z-Up is going to receive a minor facelift, and ads will probably be added, to help pay for the cost of domain names. It’ll still look nice and the ads won’t be obtrusive at all. I upgraded WordPress to 3.0, so far nothing seems too screwed up, but if you find something messed up, do tell me. I’m still getting used to the lighter look of the WordPress backend, but no big changes other than that.

Now back to uploading amateurish photos onto Flickr. 

Does the MPAA and RIAA not see that these laws and measures are completely ineffective? Let’s take a quick look at The Pirate Bay, one of the web’s foremost torrent sites. On May 31, 2006, authorities raided their servers and caused TPB to go online for a whopping three days. Still unhappy, the MPAA and RIAA sued the founders of TPB and found them guilty. After the founders appealed their verdict, the record companies sued TPB’s ISP, and forced them to disconnect TPB. However as of today, TPB is still up-and-running, and all of the torrent trackers are working.

What does all that prove? It proves that piracy cannot be stopped, no matter how hard the companies try. Even if the record companies can get TPB shut down for good, what’s to say another torrent site won’t replace it?

Instead of trying to kill off piracy (which is no less of a challenge than turning Haiti into the next NYC), the record companies should instead try to appeal to consumers by lowering their prices or making their products more conveniently accessible online. Look at iTunes, how did it become so successful even though it requires consumers to pay? It made the whole process way more convenient than illegally downloading. And it charges reasonable prices, unlike record companies. Broke teenagers don’t exactly have the money to buy ten-dollar CD’s or $700 programs (yes I’m looking at you, Adobe). If Adobe Photoshop was a more reasonable price, like $50, then I’d consider buying it, but at $700-$1000 for it I didn’t even entertain the thought of purchasing it before I navigated to thepiratebay.org in my browser.

And technically speaking, we’re not even “stealing.” Stealing implies taking property away from the rightful owner of it. File-sharing is sharing, the owner still keeps the original CD or file. Have we not been raised with the idea that sharing is a good thing? 

Some people take more than one, crazy bastards. They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. It’s also hilarious to see people throw fits when they find out that their college of choice doesn’t even accept the AP credits that they slaved over. So here’s my proposal to high schools: kill the AP classes. Don’t even offer them as an option, or at least restrict it to one AP class per school year. The benefits:

• The entire school body would be more relaxed. Students wouldn’t be under so much pressure, and teachers wouldn’t be under so much pressure to prepare the students.
• Trees would be saved, no need to print out those thick-as-fuck AP review books or AP exams.
• Schools would have higher average GPA’s, because easier classes = better grades.
• Overachievers would be forced to chill the fuck out and enjoy life while they still can.
• Teens would grow up to be more interesting individuals. Easy classes means more free time, which leads to having hobbies and interests outside of school.

My school’s already considering putting a limit of two AP classes per year on students, because as much as students think they can handle numerous AP classes, they can’t.