Dell Zino HD: Mac Mini killer?

(Credit: Dell)

No, The 404 Podcast isn't getting a TV deal with CBS, but it doesn't seem that far out of reach. The network has its giant eye on the witty musings of a cynical old man, posted on a Twitter account created by his son, Justin Halpern. Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are signed as Exeuctive Producers and Justin himself will super the writing along with Patrick Shumacker. Uhh, HELLO CBS, is anyone from our parent company out there? You already got a strategically developed television show just waiting to delight the eyes and ears of America: it's called THE 404.

Next, we take a moment to spotlight the Dell Zino HD, a full-on entertainment PC that looks remarkably like Wilson's firstborn son, the Mac Mini, but can actually do a lot more with up to a terabyte of storage space, 8GB of RAM, and the option to throw in a Blu-ray or DVD drive. Wilson wishes his Mac Mini gave him direct HDMI access and a bigger hard drive, but still defends Apple and its OS to the death--it's interesting to hear him try to wiggle his way out of this one.

Another story from today's episode comes from our own Caroline McCarthy, who tells us that the New Oxford American Dictionary has picked the verb "unfriend" as its 2009 Word of the Year. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it refers to the process of removing someone formerly deemed as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter. You might recall the Burger King ad campaign that encouraged users to "sacrifice" friends to get a free burger. Systems like these encourage the use of the term "unfriend," and give it value in the everyday lexicon, but when will this stop? I'm scared to think that the 2018 Word of the Year will something awful, like "tweet" or "pwn."

If you haven't had a chance to listen to yesterday's show with Tony Hawk, definitely go back and check it out and keep listening for your chance to win tons of video game prizes, including a free giveaway of Tony Hawk: RIDE. Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Today's Beck's Beer Audio Draft Pick is the Works Progress Administration (WPA)

(Credit: WPA)

Back in April of 2008 BJ (before Justin), motivational speaker James Arthur Ray guest-hosted The 404 Podcast and Jeff, Wilson, and Randall spoke to him about how to grow your own meat--no lie. Anyway, the show left a sour taste in The 404's collective mouth, and more than a year later it turns out that Mr. Ray is a big phony, not unlike Balloon Boy Sr.

Turns out that three people died in Arizona at a spiritual retreat "sweat lodge" organized by the self-appointed guru. It's a very sad story, and our hearts go out to the families of the victims. And James? Shame on you.

Oh, and surprise! The personal information you put up on the Internet is no longer private. According to this Wired Danger Room blog, a branch of the CIA has begun heavily investing in Visible Technologies, a software firm that monitors social media, including blog posts, Internet forums, online videos, radio reports, and so on. Luckily, Facebook is currently immune to such companies due to its closed architecture, but Twitter, Amazon, and YouTube are all fair game.

This report is definitely worth reading, but we're not surprised. Actually, we thought there was already a system set up to spy on our Web activities: it's called GOOGLE, and it's not doing such a great job at keeping our information private. The company is under suspicion of accidentally posting transcribed voice mails from its Google Voice service. Although this issue might actually concern me if my entire voice mail box weren't filled with concerned messages from my mother...

Today's Beck's Beer Draft Pick is Works Progress Administration (WPA).

(Credit: WPA)

We're doing three Beck's Beer Audio Drafts this week to make up for the one we skipped last Friday due to Wilson's absence, and Wilson's pick for today is Works Progress Administration, a country outfit comprised of some of the most recognizable names in country music, including Glen Phillips from Toad the Wet Sprocket, Sean Watkins from Nickel Creek, and Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

The songs of the day are called "Good as Ever" and "Always Have My Love," and although Jeff and I aren't huge fans of the country music genre, we can definitely appreciate the musical talent of this supergroup, and Wilson chimes in to explain the difference between country-pop, country-rock, and a million other sub-genres. The band is currently on a West Coast Tour, so be sure to check out the WPA Web site for more details.

Polaroids for the masses!

(Credit: Flickr User: * luna *)

Today's episode of The 404 Podcast starts with a big change in the show title format. That's right, we're now announcing the date with the episode number and name. Can you feel the excitement! Well, if that didn't do the trick, check out this funny headline from the first story of the day: "Woman fired for eating boss' meatball." I don't even think that requires any further explanation, but you can read the whole story here

Now that you can invite friends to Google Voice, maybe Wilson will be generous and spread the love. Google Voice is great for users that want to consolidate several phone numbers into one. The service also transcribes voice mails, assign personalized greetings by caller, forward voice mails, and many more convenient features that help you screen your communication with the outside world. Do you have a Google Voice number already? Let us know what you think of the service, and share the wealth, will you!?

Models, high schoolers, and crime scene investigators will love this next story: Polaroids are making their triumphant comeback in 2010! A group called The Impossible Project is taking the reigns and collaborating with Polaroid to reproduce a limited edition of the Instant Film in mid 2010. If you can't wait that long, they've also partnered with Urban Outfitters and have the classic film and a special edition Polaroid camera kit available in stores now.

Finally, we definitely want to show our support to Drew Olanoff and Drew Carey for actually making philanthropic use of Twitter! Drew Carey will give away $1,000,000 to the LiveStrong foundation if his Twitter account receives a million followers by midnight on December 31, 2009. In the small chance that he doesn't get the million followers by that time, the amount will be prorated according to how many he ends up with. In other words, if he finishes with 600,000 followers, the LiveStrong foundation will receive $600,000. Right now he's at 92,017 followers--with The 404's help, we can get him closer to that million!

Oh yeah, do yourself a favor and go check out Loaded today to see Natali talking about the Love Vibes iPhone app that rates your lovemaking skill...or lack thereof.

Today's guest on The 404 Podcast is The Paper Raincoat, a local band of the "experimental rock ambition" genre, as Jeff calls it. Amber Rubarth and Alex Wong have both garnered musical recognition for their individual acts, but only recently came together to form The Paper Raincoat. The release of their first EP, Safe in the Sound, ushered in an international fan following and an impressive list of accomplishments, including the iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight. We're very excited to have them in the studio with us today, and they come bearing instruments for a live acoustic show!

(Credit: The Paper Raincoat)

As we talk to more bands, we're starting to understand the long process of dreaming, writing, playing, and touring with your music in the current music business scene. With outlets like Facebook, Myspace, Last.FM, and many more, artists can easily cast a wide net over an audience that would normally require a major label contract to reach. We talk with The Paper Raincoat about the naming of the band, their recording process, their fantastic DIY album art, and their upcoming tour.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, there are a million places to stream their music live, but the best thing you can do to show your support is to preorder a CD. One-hundred percent of the preorder money will go to printing the record, and you can pick between three packages, the highest of which lands you a limited edition CD, two signed posters, a T-shirt, and a custom USB wristband drive with a personalized video "thank you" and exclusive video content from the band. In the meantime, you can also follow the band on Twitter, attend their CD release party at Joe's Pub in NYC, and download their brand new song, "Right Angles."

EPISODE 434

Oki Pokey

Jeff has the day off today, so you know what that means: TOTAL CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION! Well, not exactly...Wilson has a little trouble getting the show started, but eventually we get off the ground and welcome our guest on today's show, Mr. Tim Geisenheimer. However, we only get to chat with Tim 1-on-1 for a second before Natali Del Conte pops in to help us out too, making it an all-star lineup!

So after a quick Seinfeld moment about the woes of moving Ikea furniture, we break into a story about a real life "Gaydar" developed by two MIT students which uses social networking data to determine the sexuality of a user. Our major issue with this "study" is that the computer program takes statistical analysis way too seriously. It assumes that if you have a high volume of gay friends, then you must also be gay yourself...interesting jump there. Subscribing to a "birds of a feather, flock together" adage, the two students trained their "Gaydar" to be "very accurate" on men, but not so great on bisexuals or women.

Speaking of women, apparently a group of 3,000 female participants voted the SHOWER RADIO the worst gadget ever invented. It's unclear whether or not they forced the women to choose overtly female-target gadgets (which tend to be cheesy anyway), but Natali has a few things to say about the other gadgets on the "worst ever" list, which include electric fluff removers at #8, egg slicers at #10, and the electric can opener at #18. Although I think we're all starting to doubt Natali's sanity after she tells us all the infomercial junk she's bought over the years...can you say...SLAP CHOP?

Have you heard about CNET TV's newest show called CNET Conversations? To kick off the first episode, CNET's Molly Wood and Ina Fried will sit down with Steve Balmer at the Microsoft offices in Redmond, Washington, and they're bringing questions from viewers. If you have a question for Balmer, head over to the CNET Conversations blog and ask it in a comment!

Butter.

(Credit: Light Blue Taxi)

Can 2009 give us any more bad news? I think at this point, the three of us are ready to move straight into 2010, mostly because we're too afraid of what's going to happen in the next three months. To put it lightly, this year has been a tough one for celebrities. Although it didn't exactly make Twitter headlines, we're all saddened by Patrick Swayze's death and take a few minutes out of the beginning of the show to talk about all of his great movies, including "Ghost," "Donnie Darko," "Dirty Dancing," and of course "To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar."

Lots more good and bad news to discuss, including Facebook jumping on the @ symbol bandwagon. After Twitter reportedly rejected its purchasing offer, Facebook is now starting to introduce features that mimic the microblogging site. The first change is that Facebook users can now tag friends using an @ symbol in front of their names. The other is Facebook Lite, a less-cluttered version of the classic that discards the left navigation and info page.

Jeff found a pretty hilarious story from China about a bridge getting covered with butter, but before we get to that, we do a quick run-through of the 10 most pirated movies, and you'll be surprised at which flicks made the cut. Finally, we reminisce about high school LAN parties (look it up, young bloods), how to get 50 PC games for $5, and a new gaming console accessory called the Spawn Labs HD-720 that's making waves in the industry.

It's true that New Yorkers groan the most about the summer heat, but nobody's complaining today because we have Libe Goad from AOL's GameDaily in the studio! She gives us her take on the boring PS3 Slim and even defends our right to be 35, fat, and bummed-out gamers!

(Credit: Libe Goad)

Libe helps us kick off the show with a chat about the new PS3 Slim. After yesterday's unboxing, we've all determined that you'd have to be a fool to upgrade from the PS3 Fat (that can't be the official name), but there are a few games to look for on the console, like Wet, starring Eliza Dushku as Rubi Malone, a "lethal heroine who will take any job as she likes it and the price is right." Other games of interest include Wolfenstein and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

All this game talk leads us to a study that reveals the average gamer is 35, fat, and bummed. As a nongamer, I see absolutely nothing fallacious here, but Jeff and Libe have to disagree, and they make a good point. First, the CDC only surveyed 552 subjects in the Seattle-Tacoma area. 552 is a pretty small sample size to determine the "bummertude" of this group, and I'm sure it doesn't help that Seattle rains 226 days a year, these poor gamers are literally being forced to stay in their houses, can we blame them for actually being fat and bummed? We'll get to the bottom of this...

We also talk briefly about the 12 most annoying types of Facebookers, like the Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-Of-My-Day guy (aka Twitter feeders), or the Town Criers who feel the need to broadcast every headline they see on TMZ. Unfortunately, I think all of us are guilty of being The Self-Promoter, but who isn't? Everything you post on Facebook is a form of self-promotion, isn't that why people join social networks in the first place?

Per usual, we always need Calls From the Public, so if you have something to say feel free to give us a call at 1-866-404-CNET or shoot us a line at the404(at)CNET{dot}com!

We couldn't get enough of the Bonch on our 404th episode, so we invite her on today to hang out out with us and chat about the death of Saturday mail, Amy Winehouse, "District 9," and "Paper Heart." And stay tuned till the end for Bonnie's very special announcement! You heard it on The 404 first!

(Credit: Bonnie Cha)

The CNET offices in New York just got a little more exciting, because Bonnie Cha is in The 404 studio to brighten up an otherwise sobering Monday morning! She's only here for one more day, but make sure you listen to the end of the show, because she has a very important announcement!

Our rundowneth overfloweth today with quick little news bytes. The first one is about the U.S. Post Office no longer delivering mail on Saturdays! Calm down, the proposition is still in the infancy stage, but we're wondering if this is a real concern for anyone, or if this could just be another point on the board for THE INTERNET. Nevertheless, we're still going to miss our friendly neighborhood mailpeople who face dogs, weather, fatigue, and a million other things to bring us our daily book of ValuePak coupons.

Next up is a little rumor we've heard from TechRadar about Sony releasing an emotion sensor at tomorrow's GamesCon media conference. We're not sure if this technology will ever actually materialize, but we do know Sony has already patented plans for a gaming console that can be controlled by touch, movement, and even emotions including laughter, boredom, sadness, excitement, and anger. Personally, I can do without a box reading my emotions and affecting my gameplay, but what do you think? Could you get into something like that?

We also talk about "District 9" cleaning up the weekend box office, cocaine content of U.S. currency, and watch as Amy Winehouse has a complete mental breakdown, all on today's snapshot episode!

In Jeff's absence, Wilson takes the reigns as chief engineer for the show...and runs it in to the ground. Just kidding! Today we invite host of The Green Show and longtime 404 friend, Mark Licea, to join us in a few stories about a handy iPhone app, traveling water bottles, Facebook jealousy, Internet addiction, and a hilarious Calls From the Public!

Wilson G. Tang as G-FORCE!

(Credit: Hayato Shimizu)

Hot on the heels of Motherboard and Laserjet comes Earth's newest superdefender, G-FORCE! A big thanks goes out to our buddy Hayato Shimizu for Photoshopping Wilson into this robotic Megaman-looking superhero that fights crime with two cameras and still has time to highlight his hair. We've actually received a lot of really talented Photoshopped images of The 404 hosts recently, so click through the slideshow below for all the images.

Jeff's away on vacation and Wilson surprises us all by stepping up to the board, so bear with us through this episode. With some help from our good buddy The Intern Formerly Known as Mark, we navigate our way through a bunch of newsworthy stories from the Internet, including an iPhone app that tells you the best time to cut out of a movie to use the bathroom, the recent popularity of Internet addiction rehab camps, and how Facebook is trying to ruin your love life. All that, plus a new character on today's Calls From the Public!

404 fans show Photoshop love