EDIT: This was just a rumor. You can still use any headphones you want. The whole authentication chip is for Apple-certified headphones, which supposedly allow extra features or something like that. Guess I shouldn’t be so quick to criticize companies based on unfounded rumors.

According to Neowin, the new iPod Shuffle (which already sucks) will have a built in DRM-feature that only allows Apple and official third-party headphones to be used with the new iPod Shuffle. Just when I thought the new iPod Shuffle couldn’t get any worse.

“You will either have to use Apple earphones, or a third-party product which incorporates an ‘Apple authentification chip’, if you want to use the new device.”

Source: Neowin If non-licensed headphones are used, the device will still function, but there will be no volume adjustment or track control. Apple is really digging itself a grave with these moronic decisions. I would expect these from Microsoft, but never from Apple. Better stock up on those previous-generation Shuffles before they run out!

iPhone OS 3.0

The new iPhone OS 3.0 has been confirmed to have copy-and-paste, and not much else. There’s still no video recording or multitasking.

The Newer Facebook

Not too long ago after releasing a major redesign, Facebook is already making some layout changes, especially on the home page. They claim that the changes are to better organize content, but some of the changes are not really necessary. For example, some buttons are now rounded, as well as all the avatars. Facebook has always had the boxy look, why are they abandoning it? It worked for them very well, in my opinion. I swear, Facebook is only making their UI rounder to appeal to those brain-dead MySpace users. What’s next, the ability to customize layouts? I hope not. 

Have you ever visited a website and left it in disgust? Well I have, for many reasons. The content on the website could be amazing, but the following problems are what make me click the close button:

1. Horrendous design- Call me picky, but I simply cannot use badly designed websites for long periods of time. Websites that have white text on a very dark background hurt my eyes the most.
2. Overload of advertisements- I cannot stand websites that are bursting with advertisements. The ones that annoy me the most are the text-link ads, that attach themselves to random words in the content. Not only do these distract the visitor from the content, but they annoyingly pop out whenever the link is hovered over.

Continuing on the topic of annoying ads, I utterly despise the ones that start talking, saying things such as “Congratulations! You’ve just won ______!” Of course there are also the animated ads, which flash and blink constantly. I don’t know how I’d surf the internet without Firefox + Adblock. What is the point of ads, since most people don’t even click on them? That’s why this blog is ad-free, and will remain that way. I make enough money on my own to sustain the cost of hosting.

3. Proprietary plugins- If a site tells me that I need to install some little-used plugin like Silverlight, I leave immediately. Flash is pretty much the standard for interactive content, and I shouldn’t have to install yet another plugin to view a web page.

4. Links that open in new windows- It is very annoying when every single link opens in a new window. How about letting me choose, or indicating that the link is external?

5. Annoying navs- I shouldn’t have to do mouse acrobatics to work your navigation. This is especially true for those impossible-to-use dropdowns.

6. Slow load times- If your site takes forever to load, I’m not going to wait. It’s not that hard to make a fast-loading website, just use properly compressed images and proper coding techniques.

Those are the top annoyance I have with most websites these days. 

There are tons of things I’d like to write about, but unfortunately they’re not important enough to warrant separate articles. So here you go, a bunch of rants and updates, all in one!

Academy Awards

The 2009 Academy Awards pretty much sucked this year. I can’t believe Slumdog Millionaire won 8 awards. It’s not even that good of a movie. I mean 2008 had a load of really good movies, so how did some film that I never even heard about win the awards? I think “The Dark Knight” should have won for best movie. At least it’s a good action movie, and not some Indian drama.

Metal Detectors?

My school is still pursuing the metal detector policy. Except it won’t be regular, it will be unannounced, on random days. Now I would be alright with this if it was for our safety, but it’s not. Rather, it’s to stop students from bringing in electronics. Specifically, to stop the socialites from texting during classes. They text, they fail, and they lower the school average. So now we all have to suffer because some people can’t go without texting every 2 minutes. Now I really don’t care about my cell phone, and I could easily do without it. What I am worried about is my iPod Touch. Music is like my morning coffee, it wakes me up and energizes me. Mark my words, I will find a way past this system.

Conservapedia

Think Wikipedia, but run by Christian bigots. All the articles are completely biased, and it’s actually quite funny (and sad) to read their articles.

Custom PC cases

Most of which annoy me. Why do 90% of the custom PC cases out there have blue LED lights and transparent windows on the sides? I mean isn’t the point of a custom case to look different?

Other Stuff

WPWebHost is having a contest for best WordPress blog design. There are several categories, meaning I won’t have to compete against the likes of KomodoMedia (against which I have zero chance of winning). I’m going to be trying for the “Best Clean & Minimalist” category. Meaning there will be some more minor design updates to try to clean the blog up a bit and get it in tip-top shape.

I also have a ton of work on the weekend, so most of the updates will probably be on weekdays.

Badminton at 7:10 am has been turning out okay, and I haven’t had much trouble in waking up on time.

There are about 2 weeks left until the big Bleeding Through show in the city.  Bleeding Through, As Blood Runs Black, Impending Doom, and the Acacia Strain are playing, making it a rather awesome lineup. 

Today is Valentine’s Dayâ�¢, which is yet another holiday commercialized by the likes of Hallmark. Nothing special at alll about Valentine’s Day. These days, it’s all about who can buy the biggest, most overpriced gifts.

Vacation has started for me, but I have work on some days next week. Soon I’ll be able to afford a nice electric guitar for myself. Acoustics are no fun- you can’t make them squeal, you can’t do insane breakdowns on them, and most of the songs you can play on an acoustic sound pretty much the same.

Oh, and I finally have a gym class now, thanks to the ever-so helpful guidance counselors at my school. It only took 2 weeks. And it’s at 7:10 am, meaning I’m going to be waking up a wee bit earlier on school days. On the positive side, I have two free periods in which to loiter in the hallways and pester my former teachers.

Rap is crap

Yes it is. Most of it, anyway. First you have those idiot rappers with the dumber-than-dumb names. Flava Flav, Flo Rida, Fitty-cent, and so forth. Then you have the topic(s) that rap ever-so intelligently covers, such as: sex, sex, and maybe sex. Almost every rap song out there implies making love in one way or another, in various scenarios, cleverly summed up in the following sentence from a reader:

The last problem with rap is the actual music in it. Although you can’t even call it that. Most of rap consists of a simple, repeating beat that goes on for the entire song. Although that’s not to say there aren’t some enjoyable rap songs, but the majority of new rap these days is garbage. 

Much of America’s population is getting dumber and dumber every year. I can safely confirm this for several reasons:

1. Test difficulty. While standardized tests tend to vary somewhat in difficulty, they’re generally getting easier and easier. Even the SAT has been dumbed down (though I’m not complaining). In NY, the Math A and Math B curricula are being phased out in favor of an easier, simplified math curriculum. Many teens are getting dumber, and the officials are easing requirements to make the numbers look satisfactory.
2. TV. Many TV shows are getting dumber and dumber. The shows on MTV are a good example of this trend. Kid’s shows are also getting dumber and more pointless.
3. Music is generally getting dumber. See argument in next section.
4. The newspapers are being written in 4^th grade English, with large amounts of pictures and very few words.

Music is getting worse

Music is going downhill these days as well. What most kids nowadays listen to consists of one or more of the below:

• Artificially generated, repetitive beats
• Talking, rapping, computer-enhanced singing, etc.
• Pointless, repetitive, unoriginal lyrics (rap, pop)

Instrumental and/or vocal  talent is clearly not needed to be a popular musician these days. The computer does all the work these days, making even the most off-key singers sound like opera masters. The music itself is no better. Any 16-year old with a copy of FL Studio can make a hit song nowadays (not going to point any fingers). Techno these days sounds like passing a corrupted music file through a 28k internet connection. Rock is in no better shape, though. There are the obvious offenders, like Paramore and The Jonas Brothers, who play boring, uninspired riffs over and over again.

Move to DTV already!

Even though Obama wants to push back the official DTV transition date, I still think the cutoff date should be February 17, 2009, instead of sometime in June. Sweden’s already switched completely, and they did it all the way in 2007. Know why they could do that? It’s because their country isn’t full of blithering, techno-phobic idiots. Who cares if some people’s TV’s stop working? Let it be a punishment for their stupidty and ignorance.

Other Stuff

The fake, commercial holiday known as Valentine’s^® Day^® is on Saturday this year. It’s really a pointless holiday, in which people buy each other useless, overpriced gifts.

In other news, I’m feeling a lot better today, and I still don’t have gym class. I went to the Guidance Suite today during my free period. The secretary told me to come back after school, at 2:45pm. When I came back after school, I waited for about half an hour until 3:15pm, and then everybody got kicked out of the office, with the secretary saying “Come back tomorrow.” I hate dealing with school administration… 

Before I start, here’s a great quote:

“The problem with America is stupidity. I’m not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?”

Source: bash.org
The first topic of this rant will be the whole Facebook vs. MySpace debate. Facebook is cleaner and more organized, but it’s real selling point is the lack of customization in profiles. That’s what I like the most. Call me OCD, but I like consistency in everything. MySpace is a mish-mash of poor coding, terrible colors, and blinky garbage, whereas Facebook is all clean and standard, with emphasis on the content. Now if Facebook had band pages then there would be no reason whatsoever to use MySpace. AIM is the next point of discussion. I despise the official AIM application. Know why? Customization. People put their own annoying sounds which cut into my music listening, and they add annoying backgrounds which either render the type illegible, burn my eyes out, or both. And the fonts…. that alone is enough material for a separate rant. Why must people choose Comic Sans and/or neon colors for their font? I know most of this trash can be turned off in the AIM preferences, but there are other reasons I loathe it. The advertisements (In the Windows version, at least) are annoying, distracting, and only serve to further clutter up the already messy UI. While installing it, you have to be quite adept at computers to stop AIM from installing tons of bundled crapware. The conclusion? Use Adium, iChat, or Pidgin (if you’re unfortunate enough to be using a PC).

I still haven’t found a job… damn recession. I’ve made little improvements to the blog. For one, I’ve cleaned up and organized the CSS file. The pagination actually works now, it kind of got messed up in the move from the test directory to the root. Using WordPress conditional statements, I’ve cut down on load times by including the Flickr stream only on the homepage. WP-Cache has been installed, which will speed up the blog even more.