Former England captain David Beckham will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season and sign a five-year deal for MLS side Los Angeles Galaxy, he told Reuters on Thursday.

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MLS bites.

This is good news for American Soccer fans, even if it might not be a good career move for Beckham. I think it’s kind of risky. Hopefully, this will help inject some life into American Soccer, one of the few sports I like enough to consider watching. If it does, then that would be excellent. Maybe we can get some European coaches over here to liven up play and stop losing our talent to the Euro teams.

Then someday, omg, maybe even field a competitive team in the World Cup.

We’ll see. If any one person can give MLS a kick in the pants, it’s probably Beckham. That dude is fuckin’ poplar everywhere.

…and 53% believe that the channel should not be launched at all.
It’s shocking that in such a free country, people ask their government to censor their information to decide what they can and can’t see.

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Well, you know what they say about statistics. That applies to most polls, obvisouly. So many of them are not conducted very scientifically at all and are done just to get a specific result to support a forgone conclusion.

However, it’s true that there are Americans who oppose the mere idea of al-Jazeera in English in the US. Accuracy In Media (hah) has a briefing on the subect entitled the Invasion of Al-Jazeera.

I know the idea of Al-Jazeera in the US is distasteful to some, despite that not everything Arabic is, you know, all terroristy.

It scares me deeply that these people are so willing to dump the First Ammendment due to their inane fear. I know this sounds trite, at this point, but it’s true: The terrorists are beating you. You are terrorized, you fucking xenophobic pussies. You disgust me.

In case you forgot:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

From the NYTimes (reg required, or bugmenot), via Digg:

WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Senate today fell one vote short of approving a constitutional amendment that would have enabled Congress to ban desecration of the American flag.

The vote was 66 to 34. To pass, the measure needed 67 votes.

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One vote. That’s too fucking close. There are 66 Senators who either don’t get freedom of speech or don’t care about it. Additionally, I don’t think they understand patriotism either.

The whole thing reeks of a political land grab and it’s disgusting.

In-game advertising — a marketing frontier long on the periphery of most brands’ radar — is poised to take its place center stage.read more‘|’digg story

Coincidentally, my buddy Eric has a post on this very topic today, which was prompted by this post on Chris Carella’s blog about some poll data on the topic.

On the surface, Eric’s take on it is similar to my own, but I have some misgivings about the concept and considering the nature of advertising, I figure the worst possible scenario is the closest to a true prediction. So, I am going to break it down a bit and show what I see as the areas for concern are.

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Did you ever wonder if those asshole jocks who bullied kids in high school ever became real, worthwile human beings out in the real world? No, not if they become professional atheletes, apparently. Thanks for the newsflash, Ricky Manning Jr. Good to know you’re still the same troglodyte your probably were in high school.

From the article:

According to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Police Department detective Robert Lewis said a group of people — including Manning — attacked a man in a Denny’s restaurant after teasing him for working on a laptop computer.

“The group began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd,” Lewis said, according to the Sun-Times.

The newspaper quoted Lewis saying the victim complained to a Denny’s manager. He was then punched in the face, then punched and kicked by multiple attackers until losing consciousness.

One can only hope that the law comes down on the right side of this, and that then the victim takes it to civil court and scores big. Oh, I suppose I could also hope that Ricky Manning Jr is hit by a bus… after being dumped by the NFL and his fiancé.

Hrm, I also wouldn’t be too broken up if his website ( I think it’s <dickheadfootballjock.com> ) got hacked and his email ( mailto:fanmail@manning24.com) spammed to the point of no return. Of course, I wouldn’t condone that sort of thing.

At any rate, there had better be serious repercussions to acting like an immature high-school bully out in the real world.

(And you thought getting robbed was the only danger in using a laptop in public.)

Every story has its heroes and villains, and the history of Apple Computer is no exception. The world’s most lickable computer company has seen its share of good guys and bad guys during its 30-year history, and sometimes, the goodie is also the baddie.

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I’m not sure exactly who Pete Mortensen is (a quick google search reveals only a couple of wired articles, but nothing else) and so I don’t know what he’s been privvy to. No idea if he’s ever worked at Apple, but I expect he hasn’t. So, I’m assuming this article is written from the perspective of an outsider.

It’s an interesting read, and he comments on some folk that often don’t get much press, and that’s cool.

However, while he gets some of the easy calls right (Hero: Woz, Hero: Jonathan Ive, Villain: Spindler) I think he’s off base on a few others.

Gil Amelio should either bear both titles, or neither. On the negative side, he just wasn’t Apple material. He didn’t get it. He had a big fat golden parachute. He was, however, pivitol in the turning point that eventually removed the word “beleaguered” from the front of the Apple name… he bought NeXT and that resulted in the return of Steve Jobs.

Calling Jeff Raskin a false idol is a little harsh. He was part of the original four person Macintosh team and that’s worth something.

Michael Dell shouldn’t even be on the list. He’s not a villain in the Apple story… he’s motivation. A reminder never to become boring. Oh, and he’s good for comic relief occasionally.

The biggest mistake on the list, speaking as someone who was there at both Apple’s lowest times and the-future’s-so-bright phase we are in now, is an omission. Leaving Fred Anderson’s name off the list is a complete disservice to Apple’s story. He may not have been responsible for glitzy products like the iMac or iPod, but in his 8 year stint as Apple’s CFO he kept the company alive through the roughest waters it’s ever seen… even when we didn’t have a CEO. I fucking salute him.

Anyways, I have some other comments about some of the folks on the list that are still at Apple; but those are reserved for private conversations. :)

PS: If you’re into Apple History, and would like to read the stories written by the people who were there… check out Andy Hertzfeld’s Folklore.org.

Note: The “read more” link goes to the KatG podcast.

An anonymous listener mailed the Podshow contract to Keith and the Girl’s PO Box and they read it on the show. Take a listen to see how few rights you would have left if you signed. see also: www.keithandthegirl.com/forums/showthread.php?p=28947

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Adam Curry is a world class putz. First the Portable Media Expo hissy and the notorious Wikipedia fiasco; and now this. His crappy Podshow contract terms have come to light. Fuck him and the giant 80’s hair he flew in on.

There are people I know that read digg, but are not connected as my friend there. Do you not get the social part of the site? Digg’s more useful if you have your friends actually marked as friends.

Or, maybe you just don’t have an account on there at all. If so, then you also don’t quite get digg. You’re not contributing.

Get an account, add xt0ph3r as your friend and start digging. Let me know who you are on there.

Important disclaimer: I do not speak for my employer. If I did, they would pay me more money and make me dress nicer.

From Digg:

After a digg story posted yesterday got so mu attention, that Apple requested to have the images removed after offering to replace the Macbook.

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Ok, first of all, there are two very important things to note about this story:

First, the title is very misleading. It implies that Apple demanded that the pictures be removed, when, in fact, Apple requested that he take the pictures down. There difference is far from semantic. Words, especially those in a title, are important people. Think when you submit a story.

Second, the person posted the pictures before contacting Apple. People are reacting as if Apple wasn’t giving him the time of day, so he retaliated with a flickr post that then prompted Apple to get off it’s arse and be nice to the guy. Had he contacted Apple straight away, guess what? He’d have still received a new MacBook Pro. Fucking hell, people. Try to see the big picture. Yes, Apple is a corporation and therefore motivated by profit. Therefore, it’s in Apple’s best interest to keep him satisfied so that when he buys his next computer he thinks, “Hey, Apple really took care of me with that MacBookPro fiasco, I think I’ll stick with them.”

The other thing I’d like to comment on isn’t so much about the story, it’s about the comments on Digg about the story. I am sure the comments there are similar to what you’d find on Slashdot or many other geek forums. The anti-Apple zealots decry Apple as evil and rejoice in supposedly revealing the company as the horrible entity that they’ve always known it to be… and then they claim anyone with an opposing viewpoint is a cult member and koolaid drinker. It’s fucking ludicrous and there is no point. This baiting and trolling that you do simply serves to highlight how much of an ignorant jackass you are.

And no, not ignorant about the Mac (well, maybe that too), but ignorant about the world and how to be a constructive part of it. There’s a reason your comments are getting buried on digg… it’s because your thoughts aren’t worthy of actual intellectual discourse. Jackass.

I can understand not liking Apple products, or even hating them. You’re free not to use them. Just as I am free to have a Microsoft free household. Yay, we all win. Except I win more than you.

Allow me to leave you with this entry from my very old quote file:

Thou shalt not battle over operating systems. I am wise and in My wisdom have created diverse and various operating systems. Be true unto thy chosen system and neither covet nor despise thy neighbor’s operating system.
-#Macintosh IRC ChanOp upon kicking a disruptive user

This development has great potential to boot various operating systems that require BIOS (i.e. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux). So far, this is just a preview, but hopefully it will not be vaporware for long!

This is promising for those that are looking foward to dual booting their Intel-based Macs. I wonder if this will qualify for the bounty.

This makes me happy because it should be good for the Mac platform, but personally, I don’t ever plan to boot Windows, or Linux, on any of my Macs. I ditched my PC because of the OS, not the hardware. heh.

Good luck to ‘em.

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