iOS 4.1

Will fix bugs (YES!), Game Center (Can’t wait to see how this goes.), TV show rentals (no thanks!), HD video upload (ok.), HDR (nice). I can’t wait til the Dev-Team releases a jailbreak & unlock.

iPod Shuffle

It’s square and the buttons are back! Nice line of colors I wish they had for the iPod Touch. Costs $49 with 2 GB.

iPod Nano

It looks the same size as an iPod Shuffle except no buttons; It has a touchscreen! Basically is a mini iPod Touch.

Once again, they’ll come in a nice line of colors and will be priced $149 for 8 GB and $179 for 16 GB.

iPod Touch

This is the iPod Touch I’ve been dreaming about since the 1st gen was released (I still have the first-gen ). It’s got pretty much the same hardware as the iPhone 4. The A4 chip, retina display, and even FaceTime with the front camera! In a nutshell, it’s the iPhone without the phone. It comes in 8 GB for $229, 32GB for $299, and 64 GB for $399; no new line of colors, #FAIL

iTunes 10

It’s going to have Ping, a social network for music.

Apple TV

It seems they couldn’t get the name iTV. It’s smaller, more content for cheap, and the price was reduced to only $99.

That’s seems to be everything. If I missed anything, it didn’t catch my attention. These products will be released within the next four weeks. The product to be released next week is the iPod Touch, which is also the product that has caught most of my attention. I’ve been stuck with the first-gen Touch since it was first released and wished that it would someday have a camera included. Every time I purchase an Apple product I always purchase the version with the highest capacity because I am a media whore, which means for me the $400 iPod Touch is far from affordable. But where there’s a will, there’s a way right? I’m known for my persistence and will find a way to get one of these in my hands.

If you didn’t get to watch the event, you can watch it here.

Are you planning on purchasing any of these new products?

The visual effects were stunning but were poorly integrated into 3D. The 3D effect had visuals look as if they were popping out of the screen but not upfront in your face, which was what I was expecting (the blue alien Avatar movie had amazing 3D). I hold my expectations high and will hope they fix this and probably end up showing the next movie on IMAX.

Are you a fan of Dragonball? Did you see the horrible adaptation they did? The movie was absolutely repulsive. A decent job was done with The Last Airbender. The movie followed the general storyline but it was the small changes that ticked me off. Incorrect name pronunciations anyone? Don’t get me started.

M. Night Shyamalan really messed up (WARNING: I will use vulgar language if he messes up the sequel). The racial display in the movie was surprising. If you don’t know, in the world of The Last Airbender there are four nations each of a different element, air, water, fire, and earth. In the movie, it was shocking to see that the Fire nation was composed of Indians (from India) when clearly in my opinion the Fire nation culture is similar to that of the Chinese. Earth nation people are Asian, well okay… Water nation, they got a 90 percent on this. Air nation, they seriously got this wrong.

SPOILER ALERT: Another thing that wasn’t on par was the climax of the movie. Aang, the Avatar, the Last Airbender, the main character, was supposed to create a wild water beast to send the Fire nation invaders into the next life. Instead we get a scene of Aang creating a huge wave a surfer would only dream of. Does he wash the Fire nation invaders into the next life? NO! The wave subsides back into the ocean and the bad guys retreat. What the fish was that? Enough said.

I said in the beginning, from an unbiased viewpoint the movie is decent. In the eyes of a fan, absolute disappointment.  I felt compelled to write a post because I saw how big this movie was trending on twitter. Twilight: Eclipse was unheard of on twitter. There are some of you who will disagree with me; most likely you weren’t a fan of the series which means you don’t understand my rant. And if you are a fan and still disagree, you probably watched this movie while half asleep.

I pray that one of the producers has the opportunity to read this and will make a change for the better in the sequel. We need a new director. Leave Shyamalan to direct those movies that don’t make any sense.

On a side note, the million dollar question still remains. WHAT HAPPENED TO ZUKO’S MOM?

The music video for Daddy Yankee’s single off his new album ‘Mundial’. Check it out, the HD makes a huge difference.

This is an awesome video that captures the iPhone’s potential to create music. I used the apps featured on these videos and they are nearly perfect emulators of real music production tools/instruments, such as the “Beatmaker” app is considered to be a pocket-sized MPC. The “I am T-Pain” app is also pretty cool as it lets you sound like T-Pain with auto-tune.

Featured on this video is Applegirl002; She performs two well known songs. The first, is Poker Face by Lady GaGa, a song I find repulsive as I do with most of her songs; the only song I liked was “Just Dance”. The second song Applegirl performs is Irreplaceable by Beyonce, which is a better song selection in my opinion. Despite my thoughts towards the songs, Applegirl performs them very well. Enough talk, now it’s time to show you! Let me know what you think.

From Wikipedia.org:

808s & Heartbreak is the upcoming fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West. The album is scheduled to be released on November 25, 2008. West announced on his blog that he has finished the album. It was originally announced for a December 16 release, but West pushed the date three weeks earlier because he wanted to release the music as soon as possible.

Track listing

I’m currently busy as of this moment and I don’t have enough time to write a decent article. I was keeping an eye on the vote count for Prop 8. I was unsure whether it would pass or not. But to my surprise, the votes supporting it were overwhelmingly huge. As you can see here.

Here’s an article from AlterNet.Org:

Why the Prop 8 Gay Marriage Ban Won

The Christian right outmaneuvered gay rights activists when it came to reaching out to California’s huge minority populations.

Amid the honks and cheers of joy in the Castro and West Hollywood, there are quiet signs of anxiety and, as state election results come in, a growing sense of anguish. Something is not right in the Golden State. Even as Californians gave 61 percent of their vote to Barack Obama, a majority of them, 52 percent, voted to discriminate against another kind of minority — gays and lesbians. For a brief window that began in the bridal month of June, California queers had the right to marry, thanks to a state Supreme Court ruling, and some 18,000 same-sex couples said “I do.” Proposition 8 — a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman — now says “You can’t!”

As I write, the results for the second most expensive campaign in the country after the presidency itself are not yet official. According to the No on 8 campaign, as many as 3 to 4 million absentee and provisional ballots have yet to be counted, and gay activists are rightly refusing to concede until they are. But there is little reason to expect that those votes will tip the scales. Other numbers paint an even grimmer picture. If exit polls are to be believed, some 70 percent of African-Americans voted Yes on 8, as did 53 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asians; each of these demographics went heavily for Obama; blacks by a 94-to-6 margin. Los Angeles County, heavily minority, went 50-50 on Prop 8. These results have shocked gay activists, who knew from earlier polls, for example, that black voters favored Prop 8, but they were seeing much smaller margins, closer to 50 percent.

The easy, dangerous explanation for this gap, and one already tossed around by some white gay liberals in the bitter aftermath, is that people of color are not so secretly homophobic. But a more complicated reckoning — one that takes into account both the organizing successes of the Christian right and the failures of the gay movement — will have to take place if activists want a different result next time. First, there’s the matter of the Yes on 8 coalition’s staggering disinformation campaign. Ad after ad told voters that without Prop 8, their churches would be forced to perform same-sex unions and stripped of their tax-exempt status; that schools would teach their children to practice homosexuality, and, perhaps most effective, that a smiling Barack Obama had said, “I’m not in favor of gay marriage.” This last bit went out in a flier by the Yes on 8 campaign targeting black households.

Obama indeed does not favor gay marriage, as he said during the primary, but he also came out emphatically against Prop 8, as a late TV ad by the No on 8 campaign emphasized. Mainstream outlets like the LA Times meticulously countered the other lies as well, but too little, too late. They had taken root in many communities of color, and once lodged, proved difficult to dislodge.

In California, Proposition 8 has gained the most media attention.
What is Prop. 8? (According to ProtectMarriage.com)

• Proposition 8 is simple and straightforward.  It contains the same 14 words that were previously approved in 2000 by over 61% of California voters: “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
• Because four activist judges in San Francisco wrongly overturned the people’s vote, we need to pass this measure as a constitutional amendment to restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

Voting YES on Proposition 8 does 3 simple things:

• It restores the definition of marriage to what the vast majority of California voters already approved and what Californians agree should be supported, not undermined.

• It overturns the outrageous decision of four activist Supreme Court judges who ignored the will of the people.

• It protects our children from being taught in public schools that “same-sex marriage” is the same as traditional marriage, and prevents other consequences to Californians who will be forced to not just be tolerant of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance regardless of their personal beliefs.

Why Vote No on Prop 8? (According to NoNoProp8.com)

“Proposition 8… would eliminate the fundamental right to same-sex marriage. The very act of denying gay and lesbian couples the right to marry – traditionally the highest legal and societal recognition of a loving commitment – by definition relegates them and their relationship to second class status.”

—Los Angeles Times Editorial, August 8, 2008

• Prop 8 is Unfair
  • Regardless of how you feel about this issue, we should not eliminate rights for any Californian. Prop 8 would mandate, under the laws of our state, that one group of people would be treated differently form everyone else. That’s just unfair.
• Prop 8 is Wrong
  • Prop 8 is fueled by special interest groups that have engaged in a deceptive campaign.
  • The government has no business telling people who have been together for years that they can or cannot get married.
  • In California, we let people decide for themselves what’s best for them. We believe in the freedom to make choices without government interference. Prop 8 is wrong for California.

I’ll talk about my basic perceptions and thoughts regarding this proposition; I don’t plan to go in-depth.
Personally, I have nothing against homosexual people. They have the right to be with the person they want and live the lifestyle they choose. I don’t believe they have the right to practice marriage.

From a Christian standpoint, marriage was intended to be practiced as the union of a man and a woman, and God states so. God also states that He does not accept homosexuals. It’s not my intention to force my beliefs on others, but it’s clearly evident that marriage is a religious ceremony and practice. Therefore, homosexuals who become married would be disrespecting a religious practice.

In my opinion, homosexuals should form their own ceremony of union (I’m not sure whether this is possible.). I’m not sure whether this union should be recognized by the state, but I think that domestic partners who become “united” should receive the same financial benefits married couples do (which means that it must be recognized by State and probably Government.).

I can’t wait to find out the results of the votes. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved to accommodate the beliefs of everyone.

Comments & Discussion is encouraged.

]]> http://www.d3so.com/my-first-time-voting-and-proposition-8.php/feed 8 http://www.d3so.com/i-watched-body-of-lies.php http://www.d3so.com/i-watched-body-of-lies.php#comments Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:18:19 +0000 d3so http://d3so.com/?p=32

Saturday was pretty much my day off from everything. A day of rest and relaxation. Time to think and plan for the week ahead. I also watched a movie called Body of Lies, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russel Crowe. I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone so I’ll just describe the plot in a generic format.

The movie is a spy drama. The primary setting is in the Middle-Eastern country of Jordan. DiCaprio works under Crowe who are both in the CIA to capture a terrorist mastermind. They form an alliance with the Chief of Jordanian Intelligence. DiCaprio is basically used as a pawn by the two organizations who don’t seem to trust each other. He finds himself in a struggle to decide where his allegiance lies and debates which organization can truly assist in the success of the operation. The movies was “okay”. If you enjoyed watching the movie Vantage Point, you’ll probably enjoy this movie as well. I really liked Vantage Point, primarily because of the flashback element that was used to progress the plot.