I read today something that I have read elsewhere too: that Youtube burns lots more money than they make. I think it’s safe to assume that part of their problem is their massive bandwidth needs. Bandwidth doesn’t come for free, as I have said in many occasions.

It was always my opinion that youtube should not be auto-starting the videos when someone is hitting one of their video pages. I think that this can save them a good percentage of bandwidth per year. It’s many times I visit a youtube page just to read a comment or get a link out of the description and not watch the actual video.

And possibly they should start charging for HD embedding, like Vimeo does.

My God! You have to watch the following web series!

This is the first episode of the science fiction “condition:human” series, created with zero budget, using a consumer Canon HV30 camera, and a lot of green screen. This is the most involved and most important piece of work ever created with these HV cameras!

You can also download the MP4 file to watch locally, or on your HDTV via AppleTV/XBoX360/PS3, here.

Here’s what I don’t get.

Remember that douchebag who said that the Holocaust never happened? He was jailed for expressing his opinion — albeit an admittedly misguided and wrong opinion. He was jailed for disrespecting a powerful slice of the western society, for something that happened 70 years ago and doesn’t directly affect the everyday lives of their descendants today.

And then, there’s the Pope. Who went to Africa and told people to not use condoms! He also expressed his opinion that people should only have sex with their exclusive partners, and as such they don’t need condoms. Thing is, life ain’t like that, people have sex all the time — married or not. By instructing the much-struck by AIDS African people to not use condoms, he instigates a major violation of public health, given that the Pope is a person of authority and has millions of followers.

So the crazy guy who simply professed that a HISTORICAL event didn’t happen, but didn’t really hurt anyone (except possibly some feelings), gets jail time and death threats. The guy who puts the lives of millions in danger TODAY, gets to go about his business.

Sign o’ the times my friends, sign o’ the times.

I can’t rave enough about the Longwave (that I mentioned before in my blog). This has to be the most underrated band on earth. I mean, they even scored a contract with a major early on, but somehow they never seemed to take off and they eventually lost the contract!

Anyways, have a look at the video of their second single from their new independent album — a great song, but not the best of the album (“Sirens of the deep sea” is my favorite, listen to it on the URL above):

* I have much trouble with our current health insurance. They won’t make it easy for anyone, but I won’t give up fighting for what’s right.

* So, Skype for the iPhone. Too bad that Apple doesn’t allow background applications. It makes IM and VoIP completely and utterly useless.

* And speaking of mobile apps. Why the heck 2/3s of all apps are games? Jeez!

* Looking at iTunes’ top-100 songs and alt.rock songs, it looks pretty evident that alt.rock is pretty dead. It seems that it’s high times were between 1990 and 2005. Since then many alt.rock radio stations have closed down (especially in NY), and the good songs are far and between. On iTunes’ top 100 alt.rock chart, 2/3s of the songs are all old! I still remember LIVE 105 back in 2002-3 playing back some really amazing new songs. These days most of the alt.rock hits are mostly rehashes of older styles. However, I also noticed something else. Looking at the iTunes’ most popular songs of today, most of these songs, even the hip-hop ones, have brushes of alt.rock in them! They are not straight pop anymore, they have something that feels “alternative” to them. So basically, it seems that alt.rock didn’t come to conquer as a genre all in itself, but to leave its unique fingerprint in the popular music of tomorrow.

* Best song in the new Franz Ferdinand album is “Send Him Away”. Really addictive guitar riff.

* [Rest of the post removed -- I was being mean for no good reason. I should always have a good reason to be mean to others.]

“There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government.”

Yup…

A few months ago, iTunes went DRM-free, as you know. This is the most brilliant move they made. Here’s why:

My iTunes purchases during the DRM era (3 years): $2
My iTunes purchases since DRM-free (2 months): $203

Enough fucking said. Numbers talk by themselves.

Sunday night, on the way back home from our weekly shopping I heard in the car a song on LIVE 105’s “SoundCheck” radio show. I fell in love with the song in an instant. Unfortunately, I missed the bit about who’s performing the song, so I had to wait two days for the LIVE 105 webmaster to update their page with the playlist. But hey, I now know what the song was: “Heads will roll” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In my opinion, this track is better than their first single from their new album, and all the songs they have on their MySpace page. Another great but lesser known song from this same album is “Hysteric”.

On the same show I heard Metric’s “Help, I am alive“. Great song too, using the same musical style.

If you also enjoy that style of alternative electro-rock music, check the LoveShot too. This brand new Canadian band is giving away their first EP for free. I learned about them via Vimeo, as their first music video is shot with the EX1 and the new Canon high-end consumer camera, HF-S10 (I have blogged about the camera before, and it proves to be an extremely popular topic over at HV20.com — as it’s seen as the direct next-step over the HV series).

Update: If I die of a heart attack tonight, it will be because of that “Heads will roll” song. I can’t stop dancing like a maniac in my office. And the lyrics of the song are too appropriate:

Off with your head
Dance ’til you’re dead
Heads will roll
On the floor

I gave the thumbs up for the Twilight movie the other day. But I have to say that I have a big problem with the novellas, especially the fourth one. Twilight was on the road to have a permanent place in my left brain hemisphere, along other sagas. Until I read the synopsis for the fourth book (spoilers below).

I immediately felt that there was trouble. All the romanticism, all the love for the forbidden, all the mystery, all what makes Twilight great, completely falls apart in the plot of the last book. Indeed, a quick read on reviews online, solidified my fears that this fourth book was not really needed and that the story should have simply be different in the third book; and should have ended the story at that time.

The fourth book is a disaster: Bella wants sex, and wants more sex, and some more too (let alone that Edward can’t handle it without injuring her because of his super-human strength). She gets pregnant, the hybrid child is killing her during a gruesome birth, and she becomes a vampire — along some other illogical and definitely non-romantic things going on.

Instead, what should have happened in the third book, is have either her father or Jacob die, and have Bella re-evaluate her desire to become a vampire. Eventually, she stays with Edward, but she grows old. The deeper meaning of the novels should have been about what it means to be human and that we don’t realize how valuable it is until the very end. There should have been no children plots (vampires have dead sperm anyway), and especially not Bella becoming a vampire — because the whole romantic thing about this story is about two different species fall in love, and the SACRIFICES they have to make to be together. What makes women’s socks rock off with Twilight is having Edward being in so much pain just so he can be with her! Women are suckers for such things! When you transform Bella to a vampire (or Edward to a human for that matter), it all becomes a pedestrian sitcom.

Hollywood is well aware of the disastrous, cheap, fourth book, and I honestly hope that they will change the story in the third movie and make it a trilogy. Completely ignore the fourth book, and the ending of the third book. Make it a different third story, one that makes sense and doesn’t crumble under its own weight. I don’t have my hopes high though.

Much disappointed.

We watched “Twilight” with JBQ last night on Blu-Ray. We both really liked the movie. We liked it so much, that we also watched all the extras too, and started re-watching the movie too. I don’t believe we have EVER in our 8 years together we re-watched a movie within hours from the moment we finished watching it the first time!

The movie was very entertaining, romantic and well-paced (especially the first half). It was interesting to see that the author, script writer, director and editor were all women. The movie just felt genuine about the feelings it strives to awake. I think this is the best romantic movie I have ever seen in my life. It coupled my love for fantasy with romance elegantly (something that other boring Hollywood romantic dramas don’t do).

The movie deserved a much better average rating on IMDb. I think it’s so low (6.1/10) because the people who mostly vote on such sites are young males, and they probably felt that the movie was too girlie for them. The IMDb forums is full of smart-asses writing posts like “oh… I have my man period right now”, and another one replies “me too!”. Ultimately, I think they feel threaten somehow. Who can compete with fast, strong, handsome vampires if the girls at school only dream of such creatures — even if they don’t exist?