Pretty cool for all music lovers, and 5 gigs free (I like free!)

 

For anyone you know with an Android phone, they also give away one paid application per day, for free.  Today’s free app (15+ hours left before $4.99 again) is SoundHound Infinity.

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Now playing: The Who – Eminence Front
via FoxyTunes

 

Update : From my previous take on the crappy initial Blu-Ray release of LOTR, it seems they are readying the Extended Editions . . . . you can click the pictures to expand them.

Pre-Order the set they should have released, $83.99 for the extended trilogy

You can now pre-order from Amazon.com

The Quest Is Over: All three extended versions in dazzling 1080p and DTS HD-MA 5.1 Audio. Deluxe set includes over 26 Hours of spellbinding behind-the- moviemaking material, including the rare Costa Botes documentaries.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition: With the help of a courageous fellowship of friends and allies, Frodo embarks on a perilous mission to destroy the legendary One Ring.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition: In the middle chapter of this historic movie trilogy, the Fellowship is broken but its quest to destroy the One Ring continues.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition: The final battle for Middle-earth begins. Frodo and Sam, led by Gollum, continue their dangerous mission toward the fires of Mount Doom in order to destroy the One Ring.

 

A short preview of LOTR – extended editions on blu-ray is available (opens in a new window, .mp4 format, you can also right click the link and “Save As” to your local computer).

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Now playing: Steely Dan – Hey Nineteen
via FoxyTunes

Market Pressure Works

Unfortunately, Amazon.Com has chosen to put up reviews for the ORIGINAL dvd’s for the new, crappy Blu-Ray releases .

I believe Amazon is probably to try to avoid the abysmal ratings (again) that were given to the current crop of crappy BD releases, which they are being forced to blow out at 7.99 apiece to get them to sell at all.

Eventually it’s said us consumers will be allowed to buy what I view as the proper versions.  [ahem]  And yes, I signed up for the wait list for the “Extended” editions.

As one reviewer noted, in the BluRay world, it would have been quite trivial to have release BOTH versions (theatrical and extended) on one disc, given the capacity of the new format, in double layer.  Keep in mind that Blu-Ray also has splice capability, to add and remove scenes as desired when you click on a Play Option in the menu.  This means that you do NOT need to have both full-length versions on a disc – just the shorter theatrical release, and then the “difference file” for the extended edition.

However, overly greedy studio folks apparently failed to learn the lesson from upset buyers from the DVD releases.

Hopefully, this sort of boycott will set the standard for the future in BD releases : “if you try to jab the purchasers too hard, watch us not buy your product at all . . .”

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Now playing: Talking Heads – Little Creatures – Stay Up Late
via FoxyTunes

Shop for books in the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone Buy a book from the Kindle Store optimized for your Android phone and get it auto-delivered wirelessly Search and browse more than 620,000 books, including 109 of 110 New York Times bestsellers. If you are a non-U.S. customer, book availability may vary Find New York Times® Best Sellers and new releases from $9.99 Get free book samples. Read the beginning of books for free before you decide to buy Books you purchase can also be read on a Kindle, computer, or other Kindle-compatible mobile devices Kindle newspapers, magazines and blogs are currently not available on Kindle for Android Kindle for Android is currently available for customers in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States View larger image Technical Details Requires Android OS 1.6 or greater

Check it out

Glad folks are keeping the phone market competitive . . . nothing against the iPhone, et al. I just think competition makes every brand better . . .

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Now playing: Soundgarden – Superunknown
via FoxyTunes

Hey, I was making the same arguments, but I had no idea thousands of others cared enough to say so as well on Amazon.

To quote :

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15,508 of 16,094 people found the following review helpful: 1.0 out of 5 stars “We won’t get fooled again…”

August 17, 2009    By     C. BURNS “The Dude”
This review is from: The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Theatrical Editions + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Some confusion among other reviewers that somehow we’re obligated to post a five star recommendation for the movie. This is an incorrect understanding of the review process. If I were reviewing the movie itself it would get a five. This review is for the product, as listed–in other words, I DO NOT RECOMMEND BUYING THIS PRODUCT/DVD. This product is being created FOR NO OTHER REASON than to dupe people into buying this movie twice…again. Those of us who were huge fans bought the original DVDs of the theatrical releases. THEN the studio FINALLY released the extended editions, even though they could have released both at the same time. Now that Blu Ray has won the High Def battle, the studios are salivating at screwing us all again the same way!

Please do not let them get away with pretending that Blu Ray can’t hold both versions on one disc–it certainly can! A simple menu option would let you watch the Extended Edition when you have time, or Theatrical Edition when you don’t.

Their other argument, that “Peter Jackson is busy working on The Hobbit and will work on Extended Editions later” is 100% total BS. He’s ALREADY DONE THE WORK–just copy what he did for the regular DVDs onto a new Blu Ray master!

BOTTOM-LINE: The studios will make whatever argument they think will fly to convince us they can’t put both versions on one disc, because they want to double their income on this movie. Which has ALREADY MADE THEM A BILLION DOLLARS. Don’t play along–let friends know not to buy ANY LOTR Blu Ray that doesn’t have BOTH versions on one disc.

Please do not let them get away with holding the extended edition hostage until everyone buys the theatrical versions.”

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Couldn’t have said it better myself, so there’s his quote.  BD technology is fine, but trying to truly double (I’m not talking a nominal fee, but doubling!) your sales, by running the same tired gag again is just sad. Of course, I was one of the many thousands who agreed with him, and so I hit the “Yes – Helpful Review” sort of button.

Great Trilogy, but disappointing release.  As much as I loved the films. I’ll pass until they can manage to fix this blatant fleecing policy.
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Now playing: AC/DC – Shot Down In Flames
via FoxyTunes

Hah, Amazon has come through for me before for those “last minute” procrastinations, err, “careful buying”. That’s the ticket

Good luck in the rest of the season, and what-not.

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Now playing: The Beatles – Happiness Is A Warm Gun
via FoxyTunes

We note that this free-fall-sensor drive should be “protected” from any fall of over 7.72 inches. (rated as “auto-parked” in under 200 milliseconds)

Now, what about my notebook computer?

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/traj.html

Yes, let me Google that for you

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Now playing: The Kinks – Destroyer
via FoxyTunes

Nope, not talking about

but rather cloud computing.  While there are other options for hosted cloud space such as Rackspace, I think most would agree that Amazon’s S3 is the 800 pound [sterling] guerrilla here.

Parascale also looks pretty interesting, for use if you actually have your own IT infrastructure.

I do find it interesting that even DreamHost actually supports average customers linking into Amazon S3.