Ah, its time again for another Militant Geek Rapid fire edition. It’s where we round up all the news left in open browser tabs that just didn’t quite have enough chutzpah to stand on their own. We then reduce all the in-depth analysis into small pithy paragraphs. Consider it sarcastic concentrate to start your morning! So, without further ado:

• Tom Spring, for PC World, signs up for a bunch of Web Services and discovers that it’s really a pain to unsubscribe from a third. Netzero, Classmates.com, AOL, RealNetworks, BlueMountain.com, and True.com are especially troublesome. Surprise!
• A Microsoft Rep slips up and calls the Xbox 360’s HD-DVD technology “the next betamax”. That’ll help sell the $199 peripheral.
• Online digital music sales are up 65% from the year before. However, all the music labels can focus on is the 4.9% drop in ‘conventional’ sales. Several conglomerate ceos were seen running around shouting “Pirates are killing music!” and “The Sky is Falling”! Fortunately, the ubiquitous iPods in use successfully drowned them out.
• Anshe Chung enjoys the slightest of celebrity claims to fame: she’s a ‘mogul’ within Second Life. With the media going ga-ga over avatars that can have sex (!!) CNet tried to sit down with Anshe within the virtual world for an interview. During it Anshe was repeatedly attacked by wiggling penises. The hackers, spiting her righteousness, even recorded a YouTube video of the event. Anshe has now gone to YouTube and demanded the clip be removed stating:
  

  • the flying penises represented a personal attack;
  • media outlets not using authorized images of Anshe Chung are violating copyright;
  • the images show “graphical rape scenes.”

  As ValleyWag correctly states “…goes to show only, that moguls are thin-skinned, whichever world they’re in: no matter how much money they make on the back of unjustified hype, they think it’s terribly unfair when the media goes off the PR message.”

• Video startups are still getting VC money – in this case its VMix. Apparently they haven’t heard what has happened to Guba and Revver (hint: it’s not good). Given that Guba is knocking on doors asking for a handout the VC’s probably could have bought a full blown operational site for a bit more than they plopped down on VMix’s wing and prayer.
• There are geeks on the street from Filmloop and Browster. There are troublesome signs at the social networking site Wallop. Meanwhile, RawSugar users left in the lurch when that company closed its doors are being offered lifeboats at another bookmarking site, Simply. Vegas takes bets for how long Simply will operate.
• BotNets will eat the internet but we’ll all be too busy having sex with our Wiis to notice (playful PG-13 video with the same kind of implied sex usually reserved for the long departed usa UP all night).