So 16 Robert Santangelo is preparing to sue the RIAA over a law suit they brought against him for illegally downloading music. A little preamble: I’ve always thought it was kind of crappy for people to download music/copy DVDs/steal activation codes, etc. Especially now that you can download a song for a buck off iTunes, stop whining about music prices. Legal music download sites like iTunes and the new Napster have done a lot to combat illegal downloads of music - honestly, that was the perfect direction to go in. But I definitely see why that’s not enough for some people to stop downloading the illegal way.

iTunes led the way in legal music downloads, and provided a cheap service with a wide variety of products. But the methods Apple has been using to go about this with are turning many others away these “easy to use” sites. iTunes is pretty much the only music site I’d trust to give my personal information to - Apple has a very nice monopoly over me in that regard. But I don’t have an iPod. Which means any music I download, I have to burn to a CD and re-import to be able to hear it on my MP3 player. When you’ve got hundreds of songs you’ve bought off iTunes, that’s not a pretty sight. Plus, there was the whole, “let’s not let customers play any old AVI file on their Video iPods - only the ones they buy from us!!!” thing. Completely ruins the point for me.

Apple has pissed me of because of this. I got so fed up over this ridiculous policy (which France was working on, but I don’t think ever got anywhere…) that I ditched my iPod Mini and got a Creative Zen Vision last summer. I’ve gotta say: it’s a whole freaking lot better than an iPod. It was the same price as a 30GB iPod when I bought it, had the same capacity, used swappable batteries, four times the pixels and the screen size was doubled. Haven’t had a problem with it yet.

A year and a half ago, I was thinking about switching to a Mac. But now that I’ve opened my eyes to the vertical integration of their manufacturing process, reminiscent of late 19th Century monopolies, I want to tell Apple to go shove itself up one of their SuperDrive slots.

Oh, and by the way, Apple? Adobe, -so-, does not work better on Macs.

This was an insanely busy week for me. I was at WNRN a few nights for DJ training, managed to anger a high-ranking publisher in Manhattan, got snubbed by a half-dozen teachers at school, and just finished taking the SATs. So, some of my thoughts from the week:

I hate .aiff - you’re killing my sound design ideas, apple!

We’ll need to borrow the mixer from News Live…

Urg, I need more XLR cables!

Hollywood better get back to me soon…

Dude, I can’t wait for July.

T-Tones need to practice more.

If we don’t start this music video soon, I’m gonna lose interest…

A last thought: I’m actually rather enjoying the “Hellogoodbye” CD. Check it out.

Well, my entry for this years’ American Cinema Editors Student Editing Competition is off in the mail, and our of my hands. Finally. I can’t believe it’s been four months since I started obsessing over this thing last September. I waited sent in my entry, then waited a month before finding out I was actually in the competition. Wait another month, get the dailies to edit. Spend a month editing them, send them off, and here I am now. Now, it’s easy to say that, as one of fifty entrants, I’ve got a 1-in-16 chance of getting nominated for the award - but let’s hold that thought. You see, I am a sixteen-year-old Junior in high school. Virtually all of the other entrants are in college or graduate school (or even more intimidating - the American Film Institute). Ha. It’s quite funny, actually. Now come the weeks of waiting for the nominees to be posted on ACE’s website - probably the most nerve-racking, considering there’s no longer anything I can do about it.

Speaking of random theatre-related high-stress things I have to wait about, I had my Theatre Governor’s School audition last Saturday. I’ve gotta say, I think it went fairly well - my monologue went well, and actually managed to sound half-intelligent during the interview. Unlike the American Cinema Editors however, who seem quite humane in comparison, the Governor’s School people are making me wait until mid-April to know if I’m in the program or not. The odds for it aren’t that good, either - about 200 people audition, and they let in less than 50. I win either way though - if I don’t get in to Governor’s School, then I get to go to Otakon in July (and avoid the voice actor I never got around to sending my recording of his panel to…).

Fingers crossed!

Those of you that know me personally have probably heard me rant about differentiation at some point, and the effort to de-track the school system (that is, having all students mixed together in the classroom, as opposed to separating them into Advanced, General, AP, etc.). But now I’ve come to rant about the school’s grading system in particular. Now entering my sixth semester in high school, the grades I’m about to earn will be the most influential in determining what college I can get into. So first, an overview of the Charlottesville City Schools’ grading system:

On the right, I’ve highlighted my current AP US History grade (”C”). On the left, I’ve highlighted the grade I would likely get were I to switch down a level in history. Now, the basic principle behind the weighted-GPA (making higher level classes worth more points) is to encourage people to challenge themselves and take more difficult courses. Their reward: a higher GPA. Yet for me, this system has become the only reason I’d ever consider not taking an AP class. As you can see, the difference between these two highlighted grades is 1.25 points, yet it’s virtually the same student putting in the same effort to get these two different numbers.

In short, I’ve done what the school wants me to do: challenge myself - and now the school’s punishing me for that with a lower GPA.

Normally, I’d say, “Who cares about my GPA - I’m learning more in the AP class, so I’m sticking with that” (And that’s still technically my stance). But my parents have become worried that a C in history is going to hurt me getting into the college of my choice. So, the situation I’m in directly concerns my GPA. I find it very difficult to justify spending an hour more per day on history (sacrificing the fact that I’ve been more happy this past quarter, not worrying about grades as much, than I can ever remember being), when I could raise my GPA even higher by simply switching into Advanced US History, without any change in effort.

This leads me to something my parents always say to me. I’m always told that they don’t judge me based on what other kids are doing, just on my work alone. Theoretically, if I’m getting a C in history right now, I’d be getting it no matter who else was in my class. Unfortunately, grades are like Capitalism - they’ll stabilize things out on their own, but it often has unwanted side effects for certain parties.

To put it bluntly, half the kids in my class cheat. Whether it’s looking at their siblings’ corrected quizzes beforehand or simple plagiarism, a large proportion of the class has an unfair advantage over me. Now, if suddenly all the quizzes changed and no one could cheat anymore, there would be a whole lot more C’s and D’s in my class. Suddenly, I’d be in the top half, not the bottom. Either through curves or changes in test difficulty, I wouldn’t have a 75 any more - probably closer to a low B [For a more extreme example: if the highest grade in a class is a 72, the teacher’s going to make than into an A, no matter how strict they are - it’s just a simple fact of the school system].

Thus, if you try to use my grade or GPA to compare me “just to me,” it’s virtually impossible to do so. Any grade a student receives is always related to the rest of the class - and in most cases, the cheating that occurs there.

And I’m sorry to say that, I don’t have a solution for this. There’s no academic movement for this type of thing, since no one’s thought up a better system. We’re stuck with it, unless we want to turn the education system upside down. Good luck…

Well, if I remember correctly, my Governor’s School audition is this Saturday… Hopefully I’ll get to practice in front of the Cville Players class a few times this week before I go off to Richmond.

Anyway — I went to First Night on the downtown mall yesterday, and recorded a piece about First Film for the Charlottesville Podcasting Network. Yes, I spoke too quickly, but hey - it was my first one, give me a break. It was kind of ridiculous carrying around my camera all night in the rain just to record audio, though. I need a miniDisk recorder or something…