Fix for the Y2k9 Issue – Are you serious?

So, Microsoft in it’s infinite wisdom, has released a solution for the frozen 30GB zune catastrophe, known on the intarwebz as Y2k9 or z2k9.  They put all their heads together and came up with… “wait it out.”

Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used).  The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.  The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009.   We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on.  If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.

Apparently, it WAS an issue with the Zune’s inability to recognize that Leap Years exist.  So we wait until tomorrow to see if it miraculously works come morning.

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Y2K9 – The year all zunes died?

I woke up this morning to find that my MP3 player, a 30GB Microsoft Zune had apparently died in the load screen. I tried the soft reset and it didn’t work, so I just sort of assumed it was bricked. I decided to check the internet to see if there was an easy way to get to the battery and try to hard reset the thing, when I found this on the Huffington Post:

Right, so this is a weird one: we’re getting tons of reports–tons–about failing Zune 30s. Apparently, the players began freezing at about midnight last night, becoming totally unresponsive and practically useless.

The crisis has been dubbed by Zune users ‘Y2K9′, due to the apparently synchronized faceplantings across the country.

So, apparently, for some reason, a huge percentage of 30GB Zunes just simultaneously drank the kool-aid. I’m looking forward to seeing what Microsoft possibly has to say about this one.  There must be some ridiculously huge glitch in the software that they didn’t see when all the Zunes went up to 3.0.  If anyone has a non-30GB zune, or a zune that was never updated to 3.0, I’d love to know if yours is still working.

EDIT:

Well, it looks like CNN has caught up with the issue.  Pretty remarkable that nobody behind the software development managed to see this one coming.  And the Z2K9 label?  Brilliant.  It’s 3:31 pm, CST, and Microsoft’s Zune Support Page is supposedly giving updates, but it’s likely for posterity purposes.  Someone on a blog, or in a forum, I can’t recall, pointed out that this might be due to the fact that 2008 was a leap-year, which is why it all went to shit the day BEFORE 2009.  Or maybe it’s the Leap Second we should be worried about.  Either way, if Microsoft hasn’t already lost the Mp3 war (and it most certainly has), it’s certainly too far gone now.

Microsoft has been failing a lot this year.

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Keith Olbermann on Proposition 8

Keith Olbermann on Prop 8s passing.  Behind the times, I know, but it’s eloquent.

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Amateur Genetics?

I read a Wired article today about home genetics.  Apparently, it’s becoming increasingly common for people to create small-scale genetic experiments (for example, creating phospholuminescent ink for glowing tattoos, among other more humanitarian-minded efforts) in their homes, hoping to stumble upon the next huge genetic breakthrough, the genome version of the dorm-room borne Napster.  I, for one, am all for it, provided that no one manages to create some type of super-virus that ends up destroying 90% of the population, forcing us all into some hackneyed dystopian future where we all become cannibalistic nomads.

Then again, science fiction writers, the world just gave you a gift.

 

2008 in Review, sort of.

In terms of my connection to music  in the year 2008, I took sort of a nose-dive.  I go through periods where it’s all I can do to smother myself in new music, then I hoard it all like acorns in winter and stop paying attention to new music altogether.  A good part of this year was in the latter category.  I hate to say that it was a by-product of making my own music (HINT HINT), but it is certainly possible.  Regardless, I’ve compiled a list in no particular order of things I listened to in 2008.  Read on…

 

Random Music Game

Someone put this on Facebook, and I thought it was kind of a neat concept.

The way it works is this:  Below are the first lines of the first 25 songs that came up on my MP3 player when it was set to shuffle.  Your job is to guess  the song – when a song is guessed correctly (artist and song), it will be crossed off the list.  No Google-ing.

1. “touch me, shaping hands”
2. “ghastly protector, save me from this waste”
3. “distant country, my share of the estate”
4. “things you say, fade away like dark to day”
5. “and when you give me your clothes”
6. “the female form of betty page in leopard print”
7. “the farther I go, the less I know”
8. “I’m in a boat, on the sea, and I see you on the shore”
9. “oh hear me, I want to lay down”
10. “one word, operation chaos”
11. “without your smile, you’re breaking my heart, thats why you played the part”
12. “you were all dressed in green”
13. “I can’t sleep enough, I can still taste what I drank”
14. “our house wrapped in disrepair, a small mouse peeked out from a hole beneath the stairs”
15. “how’s it feel to be the only one left here?”
16.”my bodyguard shows a revolver to anyone who asks”
17. “If your baby leaves you, and you got no place to go, you can come and see me darlin’, and bring along some dough”
18. “you can never really start from the start”
19. “what are you waiting for, if not for me?”
20. “I start to melt, with your arms ’round my waste”
21. “there’ll be time to get by to get dry after the swimming pool”
22. “Oh, you and me, on a fantasy”
23. “so come sleep show, waves pound on warnings flows overnight” (Def. did not hear this correctly..)
24. “seconds from the aftermath, happiness from beyond”
25. “the sweetheart said, rolling out of bed, I would not let it take me”

 

Auto Bailout

The reason I find this interesting is based on the fact that I never actually thought of it this way.  Doesn’t GM owe me a car now?

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Southwest? More like SouthWHACK!

You’ll have to forgive if the headline isn’t funny.  I know it’s not funny.  It’s not even modern.  Do people still say “whack” as an adjective?  I have no idea.  Anyway, that’s not important right now.  What is important is that yesterday I attempted, and failed, to leave Chicago, IL for Christmas. 

 

Modern Propaganda

I just stumbled upon this video, made by Disney in 1943, that is a reactionary propaganda film against Nazi Germany.  I have always loved old propaganda, because I’m fascinated by exactly how much could be said about a certain group or person before the backlash hits.  Also, its kind of strange who made them – companies like Disney and Warner Bros, making cartoons for children, utilized the same “get-’em-while-they’re-young” indoctrination techniques as Germany used in WWII.  I would like to marry that irony, it’s so sweet.  It would be interesting to see how far these films go, in terms of offensiveness to a certain group, as a function of when they occur.  I have no doubt that we still have a good deal of propaganda in our midst these days, but it’s all so clandestine – imagine what those old Disney and Looney Tunes writers would have done with Osama Bin Laden.  On second thought, don’t.  The last thing we need is a Fatwa on our nation’s cartoon characters.

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We’ve sprung a leak!

Amanda and I have been dealing with leaks in our apartment for a while now.  Previously, however, they’d been fairly small and confined to our back bedroom which we use as an office.  What happened was this – basically, the ancient radiator system that we have in our apartment runs on an all-or-nothing policy.  There is a handle on each radiator that must either be all the way off, or all the way on.  Keep in mind that “all the way off” still means “really fucking hot.”  If the radiator is not set properly, water leaks down the pipe, which is exactly what happened when our upstairs neighbors decided that the landlord’s note pleading with all the tenants to check the radiators wasn’t worth their time.