Apparently no one has a sense of humor any more.

TMZ is reporting (wow … do those two words belong together?) that some students are failing to find the humor in the Admiral Ackbar for Ole Miss mascot joke.  Apparently some students have proclaimed they will leave the school if the Star Wars character becomes the school mascot, while parents of potential future students are saying they would send their children to the school.

Despite the online support for this, does anyone really think that a university is going to let a copyrighted character they don’t own become the mascot?  There is a very simple reason this will never happen: money.

First, the school would have to pay a licensing fee to Lucasfilm to use the Admiral’s likeness.  Schools don’t typically like giving up money for such things, so it is highly unlikely Ole Miss is going to want to shell out the kind of dough George Lucas would want.

Secondly is the sale of mascot related merchandise.  Ole Miss would have to pay a royalty on every item sold with Ackbar’s likeness on it.  Hoodies, cup holders, shirts, mouse pads, plush toys, all the chotskies that a school normally sells.  Currently schools get all that money, do you think they really will want to split that cash cow with some Hollywood film director?  Nope.

The only positive in all of this is the sales to die-hard fans of the films would suddenly be really interested in the university and everything they sell with the character on it, but would that make up for the royalties and potential lost tuition fees?  Doubtful.

Folks, this is a joke.  No one honestly believes a fish creature from a 1980′s movie is going to become the mascot for Ole Miss.  You are all getting worked up over a student joke.  Back in the 1990′s I worked on an alternative college newspaper, and while the school was taking votes to change its name from Northeast Missouri State University to something else (it eventually became Truman State University), we were pushing for “Missouri State University at Kirksville” … or MSUK.  It amazed me back then how many people took that seriously.  ”Well, we’re trying to get away from sounding regional …” our reply was “How does MSUK sound regional?”, hoping they would finally get the joke … they didn’t.

So, please, everyone just chill out and enjoy the humor for crying out loud.

Okay, I thought 54 was the maximum number I could do in a week, but this week I made it up to 58.  No clue how I did it, but oh well.  Go me with the new record number of posts.  I guess this is a good thing?

FunJug.com

• labrador
• Tiger Woods: I’m Deeply Sorry (Remix)
• Windows 7 “My Idea” Commercial Parody
• Halo Spartan Master Chief goes on a Date with Stormtrooper
• The REAL Situation (Feat. MTV Jersey Shore’s The Situation, Snooki, and Pauly D)
• My Little Pony Singing Musicals

Photo.BLORGE.com

• Ricoh developing two new GXR bodies

RememberingChristmas.com

• Watch Beyond Tomorrow For Free

SeanPAune.com

• Criminal Investigation Possible In Pennsylvania School Webcam Debacle
• The Thankless Job Of Being A Curling Fan
• The Braindead Techcast Ep. 10: Where 13″ gives Sean a heart attack
• Lower Merion Tech Employee Boasted About Covert Spying
• Action Comics #1 Sells For $1 Million
• The Braindead Techcast Ep. 11: Dr. Stangelove’s view of privacy is different than ours
• Admiral Ackbar Inches Closer To Being New Ole Miss Mascot
• The Braindead Techcast Ep. 12: WalMart nixs the porn while Italy proves it has no clue
• Batman Writer To Tackle Superman
• The Braindead Techcast Ep. 13: From Facebook to Vejazzling it’s been a day of wrong
• Scattercast Episode 84: Sometimes It Feels Like … Someone Is Watching Me …
• The Braindead Techcast Ep. 14: A Techmeme Friday first – MG Siegler missing in action
• Hawaii Tsunami Warning

StarterTech.com

• New Apple App Store Rules Ban 5000 Apps
• Bloom Box Aims To Power Our Lives
• Flixtime Eases Video Production For The Masses
• Bloom Energy Gets Official Launch With Lots Of Heavy Hitters
• Google Graduates Some Features Out Of Lab While Retiring Others
• The State Of The Internet
• SeaWorld Trainer Video Search Could Net You A Virus

Tech.BLORGE.com

• Subpoenas issued in Pennsylvania school webcam investigation
• Bloom Energy reveals the secret of its Bloom Box
• Walmart purchases online video service Vudu
• Walmart officially announces its purchase of Vudu
• YouTube cutting support for IE6 on March 13th
• The end of an era: YouTube pulls Rickroll video
• Evidence mounts that the iPad will eventually have a camera
• Internet meme Admiral Ackbar on his way to being a school mascot
• New sales numbers from Palm looking pretty bleak
• Virgin Media bringing 100 Mbps Internet connection to UK customers
• Palm set to release webOS 1.4
• JooJoo tablet misses ship date, no update as to a new one
• ITunes prize winner doesn’t believe it when Steve Jobs calls him

TechnoBuffalo.com

• WiMax Has a Huge Head Start on LTE
• Three Of The Best Free Sites For Music Discovery
• What is Comcast Xfinity?
• Could Hulu Be Coming To Your TV?
• Android Phones Leap Ahead With Air and Flash Support
• Chatroulette: Has Web Randomness Gone Too Far?
• Five Things Bing Can Do That Google Cannot
• How Much Electricity Is Your Computer Using?
• Five Blogs to Help You Go Green
• Are Big Companies Getting Serious about Streaming Video?
• Blockbuster is Dead
• How Vizio Carved A Lot of Market Share
• What Sprint’s First 4G Phone Means to You
• More Than Half of Social Gamers Are Female. But Why?
• Will Apple go Micro-USB for iPhone 4?
• Your New Friend On Facebook May Be Out To Blackmail You
• Bloom Energy May Power The Future

This isn’t the normal type of post for this blog, but this situation is too serious to care.

The 8.8 Chile earthquake 2010 has set off a series of Tsunami waves that are heading for the islands and may be as many as eight to ten over several hours.  Everyone in low-lying areas need to turn off all electronics and unplug them in case of water getting in.

If you are in Hawaii, please get to higher ground or evacuation zones immediately.  Here is a map of the evacuation zones for the big island.  If you think this isn’t serious, please see this map of the energy expelled by the quake.  Waves are predicted to be six to nine feet.

The NOAA Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is also showing that Japan and China are in danger, so please act accordingly.

Some kind hearted people in Hawaii has set up a UStream video of channel 2 in Hawaii so you can get local news as it is happening. (God bless the Internet)  These feeds will eventually go dead, but watch while you can.

This one is KHON 2 Fox
Online video chat by Ustream

This one is KGMB CBS
Free live streaming by Ustream

I will continue to update as I learn more. Everyone please be safe!

It’s Friday!  That means Steven and I spend the show perusing the TechMeme headlines and doing rapid fire commentary.

This week was a bit sad, though…  No headlines from MG Siegler over at TechCrunch … we think he may have a cold.  We’re sending over chicken soup.  Get better MG … we miss mocking your lackluster writing based on weak concepts!

Enjoy the show!

(Links for this episode by Steven)

Apple Stacks The Deck Against Amazon’s Kindle App (AAPL, AMZN) – The Wire (hint – we didn’t care)
iTunes Prize Winner to Steve Jobs: “Yeah Right, Who Is This Really?” – Rolling Stone
How Digg Found a Way to Make Money – GigaOM
Finally: Facebook Silences App Notification Spam – ReadWriteWeb
Apple predicted to introduce lower cost iPhone models in June – AppleInsider
EU orders Google to ditch Street View images after 6 months – Computerworld

Click the big green button to listen in!

Scattercast is 84 … and it’s been a heck of a week.

- VEJAZZLING! Living (not safe for work)

- That school in Pennsylvania is really bugging me … again

- Enjoy the sounds of me cleaning as I record. Hey, I have to balance my time somehow!

- Some random movie news.

Here’s

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for those who wish to download it, subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

Some days Steven’s and my cup over runneth with stupidity … today was one of those days.

Vejazzling … just … just listen.  I can’t even discuss it.

Did Citibank cut off someone’s bank account because they blogged about gay issues?

Facebook got a patent for the news feed … say what?

Raise your hand if you know the definition of “monopoly” …

Enjoy the show!

(Links for this episode by Steven)

VEJAZZLING! – MOB Living (not safe for work)
UPDATED: Did Citibank Block a Startup for Gay Content? – GigaOM
Facebook gets a patent on ‘news feeds’ – are you frikken kidding me – The Inquisitr
Facebook Patents The News Feed (Updated) – All Facebook

Click the big green button to listen in!

The next Superman movie just got a hole lot more interesting with the announcement that it will be written by one of the men behind the current Batman films.

According to Variety, David S. Goyer co-writer on The Dark Knight has signed on to script the next Superman film, currently titled, The Man of Steel.

As I reported recently, Christopher Nolan, the director behind Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, has been brought on to the new Superman movie in a “godfather” type role to oversee the production and make sure that there is no repeat of 2006′s Superman Returns.  Apparently Mr. Goyer’s plan is to skip the origin story, and plans to assume the audience is familiar with Superman/Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olson Perry White and so on.  I’m thrilled by this decision because the idea of rebooting from step 1 again was going to drive me nuts.

Supposedly there will be two villains this time out: Lex Luthor and Brainiac.  There will also be an establishing a grander Kryptonian mythos, which depending on what version of Brainiac they are working with, it makes total sense.

To me this makes a lot of sense because what the Superman movies have lacked is a credible villain that could trade blow with the Man of Steel.  Brainiac, while a computer essentially, has super strength and can get in a physical fight with Superman.  It’s about time.

There is currently no scheduled release date, but things do appear to be underway, and some people are estimating 2012 for the release.

It’s nice to see DC Comics finally getting their movie act together.  Green Lantern is in pre-production, Batman 3 is being scripted and now Superman.  All we need is Wonder Woman to finish off the mainline DC heroes.

Steven and I share a moment where he shows me on the doll where the bad TalkShoe touched him …

Then we discuss ho Walmart is already changing Vudu … no porn!  Say it isn’t so!

We follo this up with discussion of how three Google executives have been found guilty in Italy of violating privacy laws over a video uploaded to YouTube by a user.  Scary, scary stuff.

Finally we wax poetic over the new Bloom Energy Servers.

Enjoy the show!

Click the big green button to listen in!

It seems that Ole Miss needs a new mascot, and nothing says “mascot” like a giant walking fish from the Star Wars movies.

In the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, we were introduced to a member of the Mon Calamari race named Admiral Ackbar. He was the supreme commander of the Rebel fleet that was tasked with taking out the second Death Star.  While he had a few lines, the most memorable, and unintentionally hilarious, one was when he yelled, “It’s a trap!” in reference to super laser being operational on the battle station.

Over the years the dear Admiral has risen to cult status and been featured in numerous Internet videos and jokes.  For what amounted to a third rate character in a film, he’s had a good life.

Now Ole Miss university (The University of Mississippi) is need of a new mascot.  In 2006 the school had to get rid of Ole Reb due to outcries over the Confederate implications, and since then the school has been without a mascot.  Yesterday the school held an election to see if the school or the students should name the new mascot, and the students won.

This is where dear ole Fish Face enters the picture.

It seems there is a group of students that have proposed that Admiral Ackbar be the new mascot, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s looking like he’s picking up a lot of support.  There’s even a website at NotATrap.org to promote the movement.  You can also find a Facebook fan page and Twitter account promoting the Admiral to school mascot.

While all of this is cute to be sure, one important factor is missing: Has anyone has contacted Lucasfilm about the rights to using one of its characters in such a way?  I’ve reached out to both Lucasfilm and the students behind the movement about this to see if either had comment.  Lucasfilm did not have a clarification for me by post time, and nothing has been heard from the students as of yet.  I will be following up with both as time permits.

Steven and I have a heck of a time finding anything to discuss tonight as it is just an insanely boring day in the world of tech.  So … lets talk about the Google CEO’s mistress!  woo-hoo!

What, if anything, is Google ever going to do with Friend Connect?  It’s like they launched a product just to launch it … and gave absolutely no thought as to what it would actually be used for.

Would you trust a a free server package from a Russian who works on it all by himself?  You’ll hear why we wouldn’t.

Enjoy the show!

(Links for this episode by Steven)

Google’s CEO Demanded His Mistress Take Down Her Blog: Source – valleywag
So this is the state of the blogosphere eh – The Inqusitr
Nginx, the little Russian web server taking on the giants – Royal Pjingdom

Click the big green button to listen in!

Amongst comic book collectors there is a “Holy Grail”, the book we would give just about anything to own because it really started the entire super hero genre of comic books. That book is of course the very first appearance of Superman, Action Comics #1.

And now someone with way too much money owns two of them!

The previous record for a comic book was another copy of the same book, going to the same buyer, for $317,000.  This newest acquisition was rated as being in “Very Fine” condition, or essentially an 8 out of 10 … in other words, for a comic book from 1938, it was in killer shape.  And, yes, this time he dropped $1 million on the book.  Think about this, a comic that sold for $.10 in 1938 just sold for $1 million … yeesh.

It is believed that only about 100 copies of Action Comics #1 are still in existence, and only a few in such good shape.  I have been lucky enough to see two copies in person in my entire life, and neither of them were close to being Very Fine, so my envy runs even deeper.

It’s hard to say what makes us all desire this book as we do.  I am not even a Superman fan per se, I don’t especially dislike him, I just think he has run his course.  But his first appearance?  Wow.  Without this there would have been no Batman … no Justice League … no Marvel Comics … No Superman IV: The Quest For Peace!  Oh … wait … hold on …

In short, this truly is the ultimate book for collectors, and whomever this individual is, I don’t really care.  If he has the money great, my only concern is that he preserves it, and every indication is he will treat this book well, and in a manner befitting it.

No, this isn’t the Constitution of the United States, but its about as close as you’ll find when it comes to comic books.

It seems that at least some people involved in the school webcam spying debacle were really proud of themselves.

A blog named Stryde Hax did some digging into the case of the Lower Merion School District spying on its students via their laptop webcams, and found that one of the people charged with running the system was quite frankly very proud of himself.  According to this very detailed blog post, an LMSD employee named Mike Perbix is one the technology employees for the school district, and he also seems to be very active in forms and on social networking sites.

It seems his pride in the schools ability to use a program named LANRev led to him even talking in a promotional video for the product talking about how wonderful it is and how it allows him to enter into computers without the user knowing about what is going on.  The program is now owned by another company, which has spoken out against the way the school district has used the program for “theft recovery, but the evidence of how Mr. Perbix gleefully talked about it is still out there.

I highly recommend you read the Stryde Hax post because it is by far some of the best reporting done on this disturbing story.

Additionally, students have now been coming out with more information, some of it contained in that same post that talks about how students couldn’t use non-school issued laptops in school under penalty of them being confiscated.  Thinking about going into your school issued computer and disabling your webcam?  Well, that would garner you an expulsion from school.  One former student with an unsubstantiated claim says that he would see his webcam light come for no reason, and when he reported it to the school, they told him it was merely a malfunction.

Things at these schools just get creepier, and creepier.