look in the mirror

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070830-viacom-caught-in-copyright-infringement-loop.html

So apparently, Viacom, who is suing YouTube (Google) about its content being posted got caught doing something similar.  A North Carolina political candidate had a crazy video.  VH1, a Viacom company, showed this clip on a show without getting permission from this dude.  The dude posts a video of the VH1 clip onto YouTube to show on his blog.  VH1 now says the guy broke copyright laws by posting his video.

I  ‘guess’ the VH1 version of the video is VH1 property, but VH1 stole the stuff to start with.  Imagine I steal my car back from the guy who stole it from me, but less intense.

Just a funny article.  No law advice here.  That’s for the big money makers to do.

FlickrSync

I’ll be trying this out eventually.  I will report back later.

http://www.codeplex.com/flickrsync 

The EuroTrip Post all linked

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8

Day 8 Stonehenge and The End

The last day, we took a tour to Stonehenge, Lacock, and Bath.

Stonehenge was cool. There were a ton of sheep around the area. Otherwise it was really just a bunch of rocks. You kind of have to put yourself in the mystery of it all mode to appreciate it.

We then stopped at an old town named Lacock (pronounced lay-cock).

It was really just a tiny town with ‘old’ buildings.

If you got a post card from me, this is where I sent them from. Yes, I waited until the last day to mail them off. I actually tried to mail them from Cambridge, but it happened to be Sunday, so the Post Office was closed.

Bath was a really neat town. It has a mix of Roman, Tudor Style, Elizabethan, and Victorian style architecture.

The Roman Baths were built here because of a hot springs. Later the royal family came to enjoy the springs. Then the wealthy vacationed here. Now… its a tourist attraction.

We returned to London to have dinner with my cousin and one of his friends. Apparently Mina Al-Oraibi is pretty famous because she is a reporter for CNN when they need help with the Middle East. Normally she writes for a local London paper.

Peace out

This was a shirt my brother got for a friend. It was just funny.

The flight back was horrible. TMNT was a horrible movie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory wasn’t much better. It was a great trip. The tubes in London were impressive. The little differences were neat. Like buildings start on the ground floor, the 2nd tier is the first floor, the 3rd floor is the 2nd floor. When you are walking and meet somebody… you go to the left. Hotel showers only have half doors. London cabs seat 5, but have no trunk.

We hit the airport early as usual. I really enjoy traveling with my parents because they are Continental Elite members. This means, we get to go in our own line to check in bags. Our bags get special Elite tags, so they come out first at baggage claim. We get to skip the hour security scan line and go in the special 3 minute line. My favorite part however, is being able to go into the lounges. Houston is a Continental hub so they have their own lounge there. It is great, has drink and snacks. The chairs are more comfortable and the bathrooms are clean. In London, Continental uses the Emirates Airline lounge. I’ve been in a few lounges, Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Taiwan… but the Emirates lounge was BY FAR the best one I have ever seen. Talk about luxury. The food wasn’t snacks but a full buffet. They had breakfast since it was morning, caviar, smoothies, fruits, pastries, drink, the works. The furniture and floor were also fantastic. The shower stalls were all prepared with towels and robes. It was a real experience. Sorry the post kind of went out of order here. I just remembered this part.

Anyways, we left London on Tuesday, got back Tuesday in Houston, drove to PL, and then took off to Quakecon Wednesday after Sunny got off work. I was getting pretty tired of traveling.

Final Day Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601106926084/

Day 7 Sunday trip to Cambridge

Sunday we started out with a stop at a Sunday market. It wasn’t all that special. We then took a day trip out to Cambridge.

Cambridge wasn’t exactly like a normal university here. The different colleges and locations were spread out and integrated with the city. The buildings were all nice and old and the weather and greenery were both fantastic that day.

Later that night my dad went to bed early and the rest of us went to the Ice Bar.
Basically, you are in a big freezer and everything is made out of ice, the walls, the bar, the cups, the seats, the tables.

After this, Johnny decided he wants a picture without his jacket. We took one and immediately were told that we must be wearing the jacket at all times. I agreed. I was so cold the entire time I was in there. I’m also wearing a sweatshirt underneath this jacket, which was more like a heavy cape.

Day 7 pictures of Cambridge and Ice Bar:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601087553343/with/944322185/

UH Basketball

http://basketbawful.blogspot.com/2007/08/pickup-basketball-scoring.html

Wednesday after class I stopped by the gym on UH campus.  I found the smallest group of guys, who of course were asian and played a little full court basketball.  The gym is nice.  They have free day use lockers with programmable combinations all around the gym.  So I locked my bag up and participated in a game to 15 by 1s and 2s.  I have always hated this scoring format, especially in full court.  Making a 3 pointer worth twice as much as a normal field goal makes people shoot more threes.  Imagine an asian court, where 3s already rule the court and then make the shot worth an extra point.

Admittedly all the players were really good at shooting 3s.  I do think in some cases the 1/2 scoring format is better.  Normally in a little half court game I accept this scoring method.  It gives teams a chance to come back and since no fast breaks occur in half court, you need a quick scoring method.

Anyways, I just thought I’d comment.  I lost that game and decided I should go home and read anyways.  It was the first time for me to play in way over a month.  It was probably a good idea not to push it much more.  At this point I enjoy the simple half court games we play on Sunday more.

Day 6 Saturday in London

Saturday was a day we could spend with my cousin Tim. We ate some dim sum with my cousin and some of his friends. We then took a bus ride on a double decker bus around parts of London. Traffic was pretty bad, so we jumped onto a boat tour instead. The boat tour of London was much better. The boat tour wasn’t as hot and unlike in Paris, the river is closer to street level. In Paris you are a little too low to see stuff. In London, you see everything very nicely.

We went by Buckingham Palace. It was already closed but we walked around the park and took some pictures around the palace. It was too hot at the time for the guards to be wearing the big puffy hat.

Dinner was at a great French place:

The restaurant was on a nice little district on the Thames. We walked to the Tower of London after dinner.

Don’t the red and white lights look like Pokemon balls?

We walked across the Tower Bridge and called it a day.

Rest of Saturday’s pictures are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601076339975/

Day 5 Brighton

We started day 5 with a trip to the National Gallery. After seeing the museum in Paris, this one wasn’t THAT big. If I saw this one first I would have considered it big.

It happened to be Friday and they had a talk and draw event. Basically they set up chairs in front of a painting and talk about the history and composition. You get to learn a lot about the painting. At the end of the talk they pass out drawing tools and invite you to draw the picture. We decided to skip the drawing step but it was fun none the less.

We learned about The Raising of Lazarus .

We took a day trip to Brighton. It is sort of a beach. However this beach has no sand. It was pebbles and rocks. It was interesting to just get out of London, but it wasn’t all that spectacular.

While in Brighton Johnny did the bungie trampoline thing. Apparently it hurts the crotch.

We took the train out of King’s Cross station, so we did something only Harry Potter fans know.

The rest of day 5 pictures of London/Brighton:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601046123724/

Day 4 Back in London

I’ve lost track of what day this actually was but we are now back in London. We decided to go see the Tower of London. Basically this is the castle of London. William the Conqueror built the original part of the castle but it has many different rings and sub-castles, if that’s a word.

I really enjoyed it. The most exciting part was probably seeing the Crown Jewels.

The castle is right next to Tower Bridge.

Many people think that this is London Bridge. My brother tried to trick me and asked me what London Bridge was. I knew it wasn’t this one. London Bridge is another bridge that is simple and has nothing exciting about it. The London Bridge that people sing is falling down isn’t even in London anymore, it was moved to Arizona.

That night, which I now remember is Thursday, we watched a play at the Criterion Theater called “The 39 Steps.” It is based on a book that Hitchcock made into a film. It was only 4 actors playing all the roles. It was skillful and entertaining.

The theater was pretty small and intimate. It was located right in the middle of Picadilly Circus next to Lillywhites. Lillywhites is a huge sports store where I later picked up some authentic football (soccer) gear.

Day 4 pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601046920389/

Day 3 of Eurotrip (second day in Paris)

We were all pretty tired so we woke up a little late on day 3.

We decided to visit Musée du Louvre.

As you can guess I took this picture the night before. We stayed at a hotel about 2-3 blocks down the road from the museum. We didn’t know it the night before and we actually took a cab home. The cab driver must have been happy since we didn’t hit the minimum fee plus the extra cost of having 4 passengers instead of just 3. The London cabs are much better and seat 5 easily. The London subway system was also superior. The Paris system was old and dirty. We ended up taking cabs most of the time we were in Paris.

Back to information about our hotel. An odd thing about London and Paris hotels is the shower.

The tubs didn’t have a shower curtain. They do have a hard glass door, but it only covers half of the tub. The bathroom in our Paris hotel was special in the fact that the toilet was in a separate room from the tub. The toilet room was super tiny.

You are basically looking at the entire toilet room, you can see both the toilet and the corner sink.

I digress. The museum was huge. It had multiple sections with multiple wings. A few things I enjoyed at the museum:

We then took a crappy ride on the river shuttle. We did get to see a few sights but it was so hot in the boat.

We ended our trip to Paris by stopping at the very chic Restaurant Georges at the Pompidou Center.

It had great views and what I describe as very expensive looking customers. I ate an omelette and of course drank some Orangina. We took a cab back to the Eurostar station and took the train back to London.

All the Paris pictures are available at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/quad4x/sets/72157601033244294/