I’ve been thinking about a number of new topics since returning to college this semester ranging from existenialism to the benefits of being twenty-one but for now I want to understand just one---what is sociology?  How can we study the society, when the term is at first glance without clear bounds? 

Where do you think the boundary between psychology (the individual) and sociology (the group) doesn’t interfere with anthropology which tackles the culture.  I’m in two sociology courses, one an introduction I like, and an anthro. course about the technology of over eight societies that predate Rome.  I can’t do this in the dark any more.

Please tell me what you think of in plain terms when you hear about the study of society.  Then let’s apply it to looking inside the groups of geeks also known as fraggles. 

It’s Tuesday! New PowerBooks (MacBook Pros?) today!

Oh wait, wrong rumor mill. Sorry about that.

BusinessWeek reports that Disney has purchased Pixar for the tidy sum of $7 billion US. As a result of the buyout Steve Jobs would become Disney’s biggest shareholder, owning a 7% stake in the company (there seems to be a thing with the number seven here). Jobs, according to the report, would also become a Disney board member. I won’t bore you with the details; you’ve probably heard the story rehashed a million times now. The bottom line: Jobs gets richer and gains even more power in the entertainment industry. It may be safe to say that the expectations for Jobs to work his magic with Disney are extremely high.

For what it’s worth, $7 billion can buy you roughly 5.38 million 17-inch iMacs, 23.4 million 30 GB iPods, 88.6 million copies of iLife 06, or 233.4 million copies of The Incredibles on DVD, based on amazon.com’s regular (MSRP) pricing.

Nothing has been confirmed by either company at this time. Stay tuned…

UPDATE! Disney buys Pixar for $7.4 billion. So, when do we get to see Steve Jobs wear Mickey Mouse ears?

My family and I just finished watching every episode marathon-style of one very entertaining show worth seeking out.  “Undeclared” according to Wikipedia, “...gave a hilarious (and humbly honest) look at the highs and lows of college life, from wacky professors to fraternity hazing and even the dreaded Freshman Fifteen.” If you caught “Freaks and Geeks” also by Judd Apatow, “Undeclared” includes Seth Rogen, Busy Phillips, and Martin Starr. 

Spoilers below.

Most hilarious are the pranks or “monkeyshining” that the characters pull in response to the R.A.’s grudge against them.  Beds are hanging out the window tied by the sheets, entrances become walls, and a vending machine is turned into a vengeance machine.  If you like the creativity of episode 116, you will also enjoy 113 as well; the latter has pranks against a fraternity that went too far in its hazing rituals.

In episode 110, an un-aired episode called “God Visits,” I discovered what existentialism really means thanks to the British character Lloyd’s philosophy class.  It’s Fox’s loss for not promoting this exploration of a meaningless existence and the other side of the coin.  For balance, we also see that a vocal proponent of the bible isn’t so pure.  Luckily,…
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I bought a video from Google and I have mixed feelings about the whole experience.

First, I like the Google Video player. Despite its hefty download size, it’s small and lightweight It plays Google Video - free or purchased - and it does so very well. Nothing more, nothing less.

The process of buying and downloading video is also very smooth. You download a small pointer file and it opens in the player, which then downloads the full file (after checking that you have ther right to play it and downloading any codecs necessary.) If your download gets interrupted, you just reopen the movie and it will resume downloading. And that’s it.

The problem is… well, another proprietary video player? Don’t we have enough of these things? Seriously, I’m getting tired of this crap. QuickTime, Real, Vongo, WMP, now this. And none of them work with each other (except that you can play Vongo movies in WMP.)

And then when all of these services fail, all the companies are going to complain about how bittorrent is killing their business. No idiot, you are killing your business! BitTorrent already provides me with a much better video download experience than any of…
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Not tech-related, but this is one of the strangest stories I’ve seen, well, ever!

A man’s house burned to the ground in New Mexico. Nothing too unusual about that, right? Not quite. It turns out the fire was started by...a mouse. That’s the small rodent, mind you, not the computer peripheral. A man saw a mouse in his house and tossed it into a pile of leaves he was burning in his yard. The flaming mouse ran back into the house and lit the whole place ablaze. Now time for the Understatement of the Year, uttered by Captain Jim Lyssy of the local fire department: “I’ve seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one.” No kidding.