Apple hubris

"No other operating system, Vista included, offers the rich features and simplicity of Mac OS X. And just as Vista tries to get closer (emphasis on “tries”), Mac OS X Leopard is right around the corner — ready to leap even farther ahead."

*sigh* I love apple. I have 2 mac book pros. You could officially call me a switcher. But stuff like this makes me want to switch back.

Shared items

I added a shared items widget to my blog so y'all can see some of the stuff I'm finding via google reader.

Motorbike

I got my yamaha 650 running today. All it took was some new spark plugs. $5.58 later and it's time to go for a ride.

I'm going to have to find time for a ride this week. I wonder what the weather will be like.

Vista on the Macbook Pro

I loaded up vista yesterday. So far it's working pretty well. Aero is nice. And the macbook pro can handle all the bells and whistles. I haven't done any serious work on it, but so far it's pretty. I could see switching my work computer to be vista in the next month or two. Once I can verify that all my apps will work.

I still have a slight preference for OS X at this point, although I'm more anxious waiting for Leopard. OS X is old and grey... Vista is new and shiny.

Blizzard update

Turns out it was my internet connection that was broken. I called up speakeasy and they fixed it right away. That is why I'm their customer. When I call up and tell them I have a problem, they say, "you sure do, let me fix that for you". 9 minutes later we're off the phone and everything is running great. No escalation paths, just fixed problems.

Blizzard and Bittorrent

So it's interesting that Blizzard is distributing World of Warcraft via bittorrent. Interesting in a "it doesn't really work" sort of way. After waiting half an hour to download 13 megs of 3.6 gigs I thought... hmm, maybe this isn't working so well.

I guess I'll just get a physical copy instead of waiting for the massive download.

If they have given me some tweakability I could've setup the bittorrent client to some known good settings. As is I was uploading more than I was downloading, which is fine and all, except I don't really feel like paying for Blizzard's distribution costs.

casting

Colin and I are considering starting a podcast.

How long should it be?
What topics should we discuss?
Would anybody listen?

the park pub

Gwen and I have adopted the park pub.

I'm thinking of recommending 2 things to the park pub.

1) Let Matt dj at least one saturday per month so I can put together a dance following.
2) Institute "Clinton's Pick" which is whatever new beer is on tap that Clinton thinks people should try and why. He knows a lot about beer, and always has good recommendations.

apple iphone

boring

more comcast woes

"Your cable box cannot tune to On Demand right now. Please try again in a few minutes"
"Your cable box cannot tune to On Demand right now. Please try again in a few minutes"
"Your cable box cannot tune to On Demand right now. Please try again in a few minutes"

comcast dvr

So far my favorite feature is when the unit stops responding to input and fast forwards through half of the TV show you were trying to watch.

My second favorite feature is when it stutters during HD playback.

Google Reader

I've started "sharing" items in google reader. Check out the feed.

Seth's Pilots

I stated out disagreeing with Seth when he says that companies don't need pilots anymore. But in going through the thought exercise, I think he's right.

Our need for Pilots is declining. Instead of hiring several people who can do something consistantly and repeatbly, we hire one person to program a computer to do it. You still need someone with an eye for detail to check up on the computer (QA department). And probably any time you interact with people you need at least a few pilots (support).

Google Reader

I've switch from RSS bandit to google reader. I like it so far. When will reader and blogger get together though?

black is the new getting hit by a car

it's getting dark in seattle

Microsoft and Dell cooperating to degrade computer use experience

This just in... Dell and Microsoft have forged a new alliance to create an even worse out of the box experience on new windows computers. Unsightly empty space at the bottom of your screen will be replaced with a task manager full of useful replacement programs for everything.

Here's how I understand the strategy to work. Microsoft creates a half-assed implementation of a feature... for example, wireless networking. Then Dell bundles in software that has "more features" and is 200% more confusing to use. Not to mention uglier and less reliable.

It's taking more and more time to "setup" a new dell computer.

usernames are obsolete

I am so tired of "sorry that name is already in use, how about these crappy names?" messages when I'm signing up for a service. Just use my email address... always my email address. It's guaranteed unique, and I can always remember it. All you need to do is build in a service that allows you to change the email address associated with your account if you need to change your email address for some reason.

If you disagree, you can find me on instant messenger as garythegaryowentheowen2062006

83 yamaha 650 heritage special

Well, the result of the harley rental has left me in a place where I think I"m going to buy a yamaha 650 to tide me over in the meantime. I just don't think I can justify spending as much money on a harley and I would need too to get the one I want.

Mostly I just like to ride, and if it's on an older bike, I wont feel like as much of a poser. ;-)

I think I will arrange to buy it, and maybe Todd will help me do a little work to customize it and fix some of the annoyances. I want to see about adjusting the front brake and clutch to be a little easier to use. I also need to adjust the position of the front break, and possibly adjust how the clutch engages. It's probably due for an oil change as well...

Anyway, if I do end up purchasing it, I will put some pictures up.

movie and moving

Thom Yorke's solo album is pretty sweet. Currently listening to Black Swan.

We just had some folks over to watch labrinyth. Pretty sure I'm spelling that right... could be wrong though... who knows.

Tomorrow we'll probably have lunch with Ken Maiuri, which should be fun. I'm pretty tired now though... bed will be good.

Oh and I bought some long sleeve shirts at road runner sports for fall running. I ran 5.6 miles today (rough estimate) and it took just over 1 hour. It was a very nice jog. I was going slow enough that I could enjoy the run, but it was still tiring.

itunes album art

I was very excited to hear that itunes finally has good album art integration. Now you can click on an album and just click advanced -> get album art, and itunes will automatically down the album art.

Sounds great right? Except that for some reason you need to be signed into the itunes music store... why in the world would I need to have an account with the iTunes music store to download album art? Windows Media Player has automatically associated album art with albums for years without requiring me to submit my credit card information (step 3 of the itunes sign-up process).

smoking ban results in less smoking

Technically they said it results in less "pollutants" but I'm pretty sure this article simply says "banning smoking indoors results in less smoking indoors".

Maybe the Seattle PI is scraping content from The Onion...

a bigger bike

I'm currently renting a harley davidson 2006 dyna low rider. I just got back from riding it up to Steve's pass and back. Four hours on the bike and I'm just about ready to hop back on. I might wait until tonight though, now that I'm back in Seattle. I'll wait for the traffic to clear out before I go anywhere else... plus I'm getting hungry.

So anyway... what do I think of the bike?

It certainly isn't the smoothest bike at idle. It tends to rock a fair bit at a stoplight. I'm not sure it's a bad thing though. It reminds me that I'm riding, which in my book is a good thing. The 06 and 07's both have the 6 speed transmision. It's a very nice aspect of the bike. To be cruising at 60 at about 2,900 rpm and then to be able to drop it into sixth and let the rpm's fall to 2,400 is pretty nice. Smooths out the ride a lot. And the bike still has plenty of power to push you onward and upward in sixth. Hitting 80 on the bike is easy... not that I have... errr yeah.

I guess my biggest hangup is going to be that I don't know how this bike compares to the softails. I'm sure the 88B or 96B engine is going to be a bit smoother than the 88, but I'm not sure that the rest of the bike would fit me as well. So far I am liking the mid mounted controls on the low rider, and being able to stretch out to the forward pegs on longer cruises is nice.

In summary... hells yeah.

damian and cosmas

_MG_1661.jpg
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

pictures are up from the damian and cosmas party.

europe pictures

_MG_0013
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Finally uploaded the picture from our trip to europe.

my brain is broken

I can't remember anybody's name... and the few names I can remember, I can't remember how to spell.

more on the zune

After 3 plays or 3 days, you can no longer play the song; however, you can still see a listing of the songs with the associated metadata.

I still think this was simply the wrong design from the user's perspective. Sharing music and playlists while people are in range seems much more interesting to me... at least from a social aspect. Perhaps this is an add-on feature they could implement. All the required hardware is there...

I fixed myspace

Using the firefox browser, here is what you can do to fix myspace.

Open Preferences
Content tab
Under Fonts & Colors choose Colors
Uncheck "Allow pages to choose their own colors instead of my selections above"

You'll have to recheck the box to view the internet as normal... I wonder if there is a way to force that selection only for specific domains (www.myspace.com)

reboot

reboot
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

I just wanted to open a PDF.

What zune should've done

Microsoft's Zune

The music sharing feature is being touted as a killer feature for the zune. I think they've failed in their implementation though. The current design has them copying the songs over to the other zune, and then allowing the zune to play it three times, or for three days, whichever comes first.

The problem with this design is that it highlights how arbitrarily restrictive the drm technology is. When you go back to play the song for a fourth time and you can't, even though it's still there on your device, you realize that you never really owned a zune... at least not all of it. Something deep inside it still belongs to Microsoft.

A better implementation in my opinion:
Allow music to be streamed to any other zune, so long as they are within wifi range. Exactly how iTunes works today. When the zune is out of range, so is the music.

This emulates digitally, what is already possible in real life. If somebody is close to you, and they have music, you can join in listening to it. They could have made it even more interesting by making it so that you can listen to what other's are listening to. Think of the interesting effect that could have connecting other zune owners...

Ah well, instead, it's crippled drm... and I'm not interested.

myspace = the internet circa 1998

When or where else did everyone use such horrific design on their personal websites. I'm surprised though that people don't use the old standby <blink></blink>.

Also, why am I so grumpy?

influencers

One of the great values that companies try to derive from bloggers is their "influence". They call bloggers influencers because they have reach into a community of people who value their opinion.

Here's a thought: People who sell themselves, aren't influencers.

In society these days, it is becoming more and more difficult to influence people once they know you were paid to do so...

West Coast Gangstas

IMG_2245.JPG
Originally uploaded by monsterpants.

more myspace gripes

Adding a caption to a photo. First, you can't simply add a caption from your picture page. You have to go into the Add/Edit pictures pages. Then you find your picture and simple enough there is a button there you can use to add a caption. You are now redirected to a page that has an upload box on it. Why? Oh I see, you have to scroll to the bottom of the entire freaking page to update your caption. So they took the piece of the UI that you are most interested in... the one thing you actually wanted to do on this page, and put it at the BOTTOM!.

critically speaking: bad user interface design

I've been in a very critical mood lately. So far I have avoided criticizing those around me (you know, real people), which is a good thing. I can get pretty passionate about things. I've had three interactions with really bad software design recently.

myspace.com: Their layout and navigation is quite frustrating. I'm still not exactly sure what combination of links I have to click on to post a new "blog". Also, why are they the only site in the world that doesn't know that a blog is not a post... it's the whole thing, including every post.

Live.com: Signing up for a passport or live account or whatever they are calling it this week was a horrible experience. First rule of UI design, don't make your widgets move for no reason! In fact, there is no good reason, you're widgets shouldn't move after the page has finished loading.

Visio: The task was simple, addd some callouts to a diagram. The callouts were easy to add, but impossible to resize. Well it turns out that the designer of the callout object knew they were problematic, they went so far as to make the default text (before you replace it with your own) instructions on how to resize them... except the directions weren't helpful because they told you to grab a tab that wasn't there. So we dig through and try to find the property pages. Turns out the easiest way to adjust the width of the callout text box is to change THE HEIGHT! Somebody please explain this to me... or not, I'm not sure I want that kind of logic anywhere near my brain.

Running is as Running does

I ran today. I ran yesterday. Running is hard work, but it's also fun. It makes walking seem much easier.

Live.com

Maybe the whole thing just doesn't work with firefox...

Microsoft Live Spaces Sucks!

I wanted to post a comment on Kevin's blog.

First I had to create a new live account. The UI for creating a new user is horrible. Every time you move to a new section of the screen it adds some "helpful" information to the page, that not so helpfully moves the current dialog boxes around. So the process consists of: first dialog box, enter value, wait for page to redraw, search for box you just clicked on, verify that input is still valid, enter value, tab to next dialog, next dialog moves, scan page for cursor, try to enter value again, rinse, repeat.

Once I got signed in, I was finally able to post a comment. But when I clicked the add button, nothing happened, so I clicked it again. Still failure.

This was an awful experience. All I wanted to do was post a simple comment about how cool Dirty Jobs is. Very simple. I guess not.

UI Design is very important. Micrsoft missed the mark big time on this one. And, they did it to me the very first time I used their service. I'm not sure I will bother going back. I'm pissed.

myspace sucks again

why can't they move their blog management to a faster cluster? Why must they waste so much of my time.

I hate them.

Why text messaging rules: #3

I can do it in a restaurant and nobody gives me the so called evil eye balls stare.

online promotions

dear papa johns,

If you put promotions on your website, please let your franchises know about it so that when we call and ask for the promotion, they know what we're talking about and we don't have to waste 10 minutes trying to "locate" said promotion. It would make our lives a lot easier.

Gary

myspace sucks!

myspace sucks!

No witty insight or commentary on how they could improve. They just suck. I'm sick and tired of waiting for their pages to load......

Why text messaging rules: #2

Multi-tasking. I can text and listen to music/watch tv/carry on a conversation (kind off) all while texting.

Why text messaging rules: #1

I hate checking my voice mail. I hate it so much. I have two messages on my voice mail right now. I know who they are from, and what they are about. I can't bring myself dial in and erase them. It seems so archaic.

rock on bishop

rock on bishop
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Got some pictures up bout phil and lacey's wedding.

New Harleys

hmmm, this is interesting. Perhaps my search starts all over again. I'll have to call the dealership and see when they are getting the new models in.

Vista

Yeah I gave up on that. I didn't do it early enough in the process and now it would be a pain to backup the macbook pro before doing it (sounds like their is a bit of partition hacking you need to do).

Maybe by the time the release candidates roll around...

MacBook for Jon

Jon got a macbook. That's cool... Maybe we can put ours together and they can fight... see which one heats up faster.

Apple "Marketing"

Now I like the macbook, I like it a lot. But stuff like this really annoys me.

Why does the battery charge seems to run down faster when using Windows XP than when using Mac OS X?

Mac OS X includes power management optimizations that are not available in Windows XP.

The reality is that windows xp has had this type of technology (intel speedstep) for a long time. Really what happened is that apple didn't include the appropriate drivers in the bootcamp beta. Or perhaps the appropriate drivers don't exist yet (although I find that hard to believe since there are windows machines running on core duo now). Maybe they're they're talking about some other kind of optimizations... spinning down the HD... shutting down the monitor... I think the reality is that some Apple marketing person is trying to take an extra, unnecessary jab at Microsoft. Come on Apple marketing person, stand up for what you're good at, making computers "Cool" and stop trying to belittle your competition when anyone with a little experience with technology can see through your spin.

Vista on Macbook

Found some instructions here. I'll try it out tomorrow (or so).

Windows on a Mac Book

Finally got it installed today. Wasn't very difficult once I had the proper CD. For some reason the eject button doesn't work though, which was supposedly included in the driver dvd. It's easy enough to eject through explorer if an external mouse is plugged in though. I hope apple keeps working on bootcamp. It's probably 90% there.

I tried to apply all the latest updates from MS, except I can't proof my copy of windows is "genuine" without activating, and I'm not sure that I want to activate this machine yet. Hopefully by tomorrow vista beta 2 will be finished download and I can try installing that instead... I'll have to do some googling first to see if there are any tips out there.

Layout on Defence

Layout on Defence
Originally uploaded by timblair.

This is why ultimate is fun.

ultimate frisbee

ultimate frisbee is very fun. If anyone hasn't heard of it, check out the wikipedia entry.

We've been playing the first and third thursdays of every month at 41st and Fremont.

Harley Softail Standard or Low-Rider

What do y'all think.

This or this?

I like the lines of the standard with the hidden suspension, but the shocks are kind of cool looking on the low rider. They are pretty close in price. Both have a seat height around 25.5 inches which is probably right for me. One is rigid mounted with a balanced engine, the other is rubber mounted...

Both are nice looking bikes.

Macbook day 2

Well I had a false start with installing Windows XP on the macbook pro tonight. Turns out you need the XP + SP2 install disk and I only have the original XP install disk. Perhaps I can burn a copy from work tomorrow and use my existing install key.

Leadership and Belonging

There are 2 types of people in the world.
1. Those that want to belong to something bigger than themselves.
2. Those that want to create something bigger than themselves.

Number 2s are leaders, Number 1s are essential?

New macbook pro

Purchased a new macbook pro last night.
First order of business: 500 megs of updates from apple. [completed]
Second order of business: Bootcamp and windows xp.
Third order of business: probably also 500 megs of updates from microsoft.

Work is hard

Working hard is hard work.

Josh Ottum

Josh Ottum is the shiz. Gwen say him at the Sunset Tavern on friday (or so) and picked up his "Big Red EP". It's super great and awesome. I don't think it's available in stores, but it should be.

By the way

Gwen and I went to Europe. It was fun.

Wedding Time

_MG_0724
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

It's wedding time.

Ryan and Bonnie's Wedding pictures

Radish

IMG_2654
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

I love this picture.

Fremont

_MG_8274
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Eliacin and I took a picture tour of Fremont today (technically it was saturday). Check out the Photo Set

Canon 50mm F1.4 for real

I finally broke down and bought this lens. I've started tagging my pictures so you can see some of the new ones taken with this cool prime lens. I likes it.

We traced the call

It's coming from outside the house!?!?!

Pier O

_MG_7896
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Took a few pictures tonight after work.

Gwen's Tron Birthday Party

_MG_7588
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

New photoset up for Gwen's birthday party tonight.

Canon 50mm F1.4

_MG_7139
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Rented a lens for my camera this weekend. I just posted 33 new photos using it. Pretty good for low light situations (which I find myself in a lot).

Pretty seriously considering getting it. I really want to try out the 35mm lens that is the same aperature, but it's 1,200 to buy, so I'm not sure that I want to get attached to it.

We traced the call

It's coming from inside the house!!!

Trav's Ordination

TravsOrdinationDay0002
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

A new photo set up for Travis's Ordination.

blog'n blog

Not sure what this blog should be about anymore. It started as a place to record some ideas about an "ideal" music distribution system. Seems like I've lost some focus. Not that I need to focus on music distribution. But what should I focus on?

Lately I've been into 2 things. Photography and Business. You can see the photography represented in the flickr links I keep posting. Perhaps I should figure out what our company's blogging policy is...

Does anybody still read this thing anyways?

TheologyPub-HalesAles0013

TheologyPub-HalesAles0013
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

New photoset up from tonight's theology pub.

Phil and Lacey

_MG_5897
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

It's a Phil and Lacey photoset.

Jumping cats

_MG_5480
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Jumping cats are the strangest cats of all.

Our cat radio is insane-crazy-nuts about catching that toy.

performancing

So far, not impressed with the workflow. Blogthis was a better extension, but for some reason it got all tinted fogged up sparkely and weird.

myspace

So yeah, I signed up for myspace.  I feel kind of dirty... and the dirt's not coming off.  I've resisted myspace for a long time, but I thought I should at least use it for a little while before I continue to complain.  Man that site is jammed full of adds.  I've added like four or five different high level domains to adblock and so far it hasn't been enough.  How annoying.  Anyway, if you have myspace you can like, try and make me a friend or something.

www.myspace.com/owengary

Performancing

Performancing for Firefox | Performancing.com

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox. Just hit F8 or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.

Just downloaded performancing for blogging. I wonder how well it will work?

Microsoft closes Metafile hole with early patch

Microsoft closes Metafile hole with early patch: "With computer experts rating the security flaw as 'extremely critical,' there's little doubt MS had teams of software engineers working overtime to get this new hole closed."

Thanks for all the hard work that was put into this patch.

On kids

Dear parents,

I don't mind so much when your kids make noise in restaurants. It usually brings a little smile to my face because I know you're raising a family and hopefully, in some small way making the world a better place by trying to be good parents.

I do mind when you smack your five year old kid across the face and proceed to tell him "I hit you so you'll know who's in charge".

Sincerely,
Gary Owen

MASSIVE, et al.: a glimpse into the mind of a mad-woman.

MASSIVE, et al.: a glimpse into the mind of a mad-woman.: "i finally discovered how to make an animated gif."

I've been really sick lately, and so I went to bed "early" last night. I guess Gwen stayed up to make this awesome animated gif.

Gwen Claws

_MG_4464-small
Originally uploaded by garyowen.

Well, as you can see from my previous post, I'm getting aquanted with flickr. I got a Canon 20D for Christmas and it's time to get my photo sharing all setup.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Sony caught in another DRM snafu

Sony caught in another DRM snafu: "At this point, I don't know what I can say about the whole sorry mess that hasn't already been said, so I'll close with this: if Sony is trying to alienate its customers, expose itself to massive legal liability, and get the general public up in arms over DRM, it's doing a fine job. If the music label has some other goal in mind, it needs to change its tactics quickly."

Poor misguided Sony...

Fogbugz Feature Request

I was going to post this over on the fogbugz support forum, but halfway through I realized it might not be a great feature request and could probably use some debate, so I thought I would post it up here instead.... cause this is where I post my crazy half thought out ideas. Feel free to skip if you're not interested in software development or bug tracking systems.


Here is something I've noticed about software development in general that I would like to address. Hopefully Fogbugz can help.

First some background:

Typically when new bugs are entered into a bug tracking system, a priority is assigned. The priority is typically based on the "severity" of the bug, for example, a bug that causes data loss would be categorized as a 1. A bug that stops the user from accessing a part of the application but has a simple work around might be a 2. etc... etc...

Typically the prioritization of a bug takes into account the characteristics of the bug itself. What has happened in our fogbugz system is that all the open bugz are in one list, "undecided". Some of these are of high priority, we fix all of those issues before each release. There are many other bugs below the top that we don't always have time to fix. Prioritizing within those cases can be difficult. If we increase the granularity of the severities, then it becomes more difficult to enter bugs, if we use a more course listing of severities, then we loss some of the subtelies of prioritization.

Now onto the meat:

Most development shops would say that the source of a bug report matters. A bug coming from your biggest customer usually carries more weight than the bug entered by a small shop.

Here's what's interesting, in most organizations, bugs entered by internal QA get more attention than bugs entered by your customers. This makes sense during the early stages of development, when a customer hasn't seen the new features (fix bugs as close to their introduction as possible) but makes less sense as the product matures. During the beta period, bugs encountered by the customers should typically be given higher priority than the ones entered internally, as they are more likely to reflect issues that the customer base at large will experience.

The feature request basically boils down to an ability to keep track of the source of a fogbugz case. Before migrating to fogbugz we used a home grown bug tracking system that allowed us to associate a particular customer with a case. This way, when the bug was resovled, the original customer could be notified. This might require too much of fogbugz (it would need to interface with, or support buiding a customer list) but I'll admit that is probably the one feature I miss most since upgrading to fogbugz.

Spitzer shakes finger at Sony

Spitzer shakes finger at Sony: "Despite the fact that the XCP rootkit has been in the headlines of late, it's important to note that Sony uses other forms of DRM as well, some almost as nasty. SunComm's MediaMax software also comes as a free bonus on selected Sony discs, and because SunComm knows how much you want their DRM on your computer, they've gone ahead and given you an early Christmas present: MediaMax installs itself on your PC even if you decline the license agreement."

So yeah, I guess that means I should never buy a Sony CD again. Not that I have recently anyway, but now I have to be intentional about it.

Joel on iTunes

Joel on Software: "Econ 101 says that they should raise the price on these ultra-popular movies. As long as the movie is sold out, why not jack up the price and make more money?"

I thought of another reason that the record industries argument doesn't make sense. With movie theatres, there are a limited number of seats. To maximize profit for a particular movie, you will want to get the theatre as full as possible with people willing to pay as high a price as possible.

Unfortunately the iTunes music store doesn't work that way, neither does any of the web actually. So long as Apple is able to cover their bandwidth bills, there is no addition cost if one song sells more than another. Say 100 people buy song A, and 10 people buy song B. Obviously we should charge more for song A right, because only 100 people can buy..... wait a minute, that's not true. There aren't 100 copies of song A, there is the potential for unlimited copies of song A. There is no such thing as scarcity.

This cuts back to the core of the argument I've been making on this blog. The old model seemed to work because the intellectual property tax was tied to something physical. So nobody needed to know about the difference. But when you are talking about something that is almost infinitely cheap to distribute, all of a sudden people intuitively understand that copying a CD from a friend doesn't decrease the amount of music available in the world. They intuitively know that the physical model doesn't quite work anymore. The problem is, we don't have something to replace it....

Congress gives Fair Use legislation a hearing

Congress gives Fair Use legislation a hearing: "In the meantime, the MPAA and RIAA want to nudge consumers towards their ideal marketplace: where we have to pay for the privilege of viewing or listening to content more than once. Consumers have let the industry know through decreased CD, DVD, and movie ticket sales that they are not finding the industry's value proposition very compelling. But instead of responding to market forces, the movie and music industries are continuing their attempts to legislate the market. If your elected representatives are not willing to support your Fair Use rights, don't support them next election."

hmmm, more arstechnica on DRM.

Sony sued over DRM "rootkit"

Sony sued over DRM "rootkit": "This entire fiasco could be one of the best things to happen on the consumer's technology rights front in recent years. A few well placed law-suits may raised consumer awareness to the oncoming onslaught of unfriendly technological measures supposedly aimed at curbing piracy, and may even prompt a re-evaluation of tactics similar to those used by Sony."

Sony: what you don't know can't hurt you

Sony: what you don't know can't hurt you: "Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG's global digital business division, showed up on NPR to try and sweep the entire thing under the rug.

'Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it,' he asked? 'The software is designed to protect our CDs from unauthorized copying, ripping.'"

Most people don't know what mesothelioma is either. Doesn't mean they want to get it.

Telegraph | News | Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt

Telegraph | News | Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt: "The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen."

hmmm. I thought torture = bad.

Kansas education board rewrites science

Via Kevin Schofield
Kansas education board downplays evolution - Science - MSNBC.com: "In addition, the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena."

Who knew the Kansas Board of Education had the power to do that....

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Google Desktop is Back with a Vengeance

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life - Google Desktop is Back with a Vengeance: "The highlighted requests are requests to URLs of Atom & RSS feeds that were in my browser cache by Google Desktop. I did not configure the application to fetch these feeds. So not only does Google Desktop flood websites with feed requests in a manner bordering on the behavior of a malicious application, it also does this automatically without the end user explicitly subscribing to the feed."

Dare Obasanjo (who knows a thing or two about how to build rss aggregators) criticizes google desktop's behavior.

Why is iTunes better than Windows Media Player

Which is easier, hitting the space bar, or hitting CTRL+P. What's harder, hitting F10 or Ctrl+Up.

It's the little things sometimes. If I alt tab over to iTunes it's really easy for me to pause the current song by hitting the space bar, unlike windows media player which requires Ctrl+P. Volume control is also easier in iTunes because I can use Ctrl+Up or Down to change the volume.

I'm sure I could come up with a bunch more. Maybe I should point WiMP at my itunes directory and just try switching for a little while... course then I would have to give up podcasts... I wonder how good WiMP would be at syncing up to my ipod nano...

IT energy crisis reaching critical mass

First read this:
Intel announces major 2006/2007 roadmap changes: "At any rate, if this widely linked shootout is to be believed then Opteron does indeed wallop the new Xeons in terms of raw performance, and if one factors in performance/watt then it's absolute carnage."

The read this:
IT energy crisis reaching critical mass: "The old ways of throwing equipment at IT problems -- more air conditioning units, servers, UPS units -- is going to have to be revisited. And IT pros are going to be asked to find more efficient ways to increase reliability and computing capacity."

Interesting eh? Not exactly a good time for Intel's plans to fall apart. It would really be fascinating to see some analysis about Intel's performance over the last couple of years.

Torres Talking: Friendster is STILL creepy

Torres Talking: Friendster is STILL creepy: "Friendster apparently thought it was a good idea to send mail to all of the 'friends' I invited a year and half ago who decided to delete my invitation instead of joining. Of course, Friendster did this without my 'OK'."

I've never really liked friendster. Course it doesn't really make me feel any better to have that dislike validated.

Judge rebukes Microsoft over WMP bundling

Judge rebukes Microsoft over WMP bundling: "Last week, it emerged that Microsoft had submitted a draft marketing agreement to digital music player manufacturers that would have prohibited them from bundling any software other than Windows Music Player with their devices in exchange for installation CDs for Windows Media Player. One of the manufacturers cried foul, and as a result, Microsoft was given a harsh rebuke by Judge Kollar-Kotelly. "

Whoops.

CC in Review: Lawrence Lessig on CC & Fair Use | Creative Commons

CC in Review: Lawrence Lessig on CC & Fair Use | Creative Commons: "As life moves online, 'free uses' shrink. Because every act on a digital network produces a copy, and 'copies' trigger copyright law, there are vastly fewer 'free uses' in digital space than in analog space."

A good primer in why creative commons is good and why copyright law is getting wacky in the new digital age.

ArsTechnica: Anti-game activist Jack Thompson under investigation

Anti-game activist Jack Thompson under investigation: "Jack then reneged on his promise of a US$10,000 donation to the charity of the modder's choice, saying that his original bounty had been 'satire', and therefore not a legitimate promise."

I actually watched this one unfold on penny arcade. You can't make this stuff up. :-)

Apple steps up iPod 'tax' push | CNET News.com

Apple steps up iPod 'tax' push | CNET News.com: "Apple Computer is stepping up its push to get iPod accessory makers to pay for the right to connect to the popular music player."

Some would say that's as crazy as charging Sony a tax on the walkman because it wouldn't exist without music.

Firefly (aka best show ever)

Brian and I are watching firefly tonight. We saw the movie on opening day, I had seen the series first, Brian hadn't so we're catching him up.

I think this was the best show ever.

If you like any kind of sci-fi at all you should watch this.

Here is a good review of the movie Serenity (firefly movie) by Orson Scott.

Microsoft and Real Networks

Joel asked a question in my comments here.

It's tough to say what will happen now that Real Networks and Microsoft have teamed up. What usually happens when two mediocre players get together to try and make something great...

My prediction is that nothing interesting will happen. Microsoft doesn't have the whole platform, and neither does Real Networks. I don't think real has been a significant player in the online space for many years. (At least they haven't been in my conciousness for a long time)

Apple is definitely focused on the music platform. It will take something radical to blast Apple out of it's position as market leader. I think Apple has positioned the itunes music store very well. The store is designed to support the iPod. An iPod is something tangible, sure music has higher profit margins because the distribution costs are next to nothing.

I would predict that in order to replace the iTunes conglomerate there would need to be something that really addresses the rub of online music distribution.

I wont buy songs through the itunes music store because I am more restricted in how I can use it. Since Apple's DRM limits what I can do with the music, it is less valuable to me. I recently bought a CD at Sonic Boom that cost 17 bucks. I could've gotten the same music from iTunes for about 12 bucks. The extra five dollars were worth it to me though because I could put that music on both Gwen and my laptops, as well as have a hard copy in case those digital files are lost.

What does that mean for iTMS? How many people are not buying music because of that? Hard to say really. Why wont I encode my music as AAC or WMA? That one is not so hard. MP3 is a de-facto standard. Every portable music player supports it. Choosing another media format does nothing but benefit the owner of that format. By choosing WMA, I give Microsoft more business. By choosing AAC, I give Apple more business (the business I'm talking about is codec licensing, if I have a ton of WMA I'm going to demand that my audio player plays WMA, which costs the hardware manufacturer to license).

Ok so what does all this mean... I guess it means it's friday and I'm rambling. But it also means that your music player doesn't matter, your audio format does. Choose the platform with the widest support to encode your music in, and then pick the player that fits your model of how you work with music. I choose itunes to play my music because I have an iPod and an Airport Express. If another equally awesome or better set of peripherals come out for Windows Media Player, I can simply pick up my library and move it over to that player.

Now is the time where I would normally proof-read my post... but instead I'm going to not.