Recently in Culture Category

I've been thinking for some time of rigging myself something to nestle a coffee holding vessel somewhere on my scooter. Corazzo seems to make good products (though I bought a larger fancier Italian lap blanket instead of theirs) and this seems like an obviously handy one to have.

But patent pending, self-levelling, auto-gimbal? Either they're trying to patent basic physics (inertia, gravity) or that is supposed to be internet humor...

...or mention of his Pattern Recognition anyway, today in the form of a recommended summer/beach reading. Especially after going to OSCON last week and seeing that practically everybody is using MacBook's these days and also at the same time hearing a lot of wailing about vendor lock-in and the need for openness, I'm surprised there aren't more Cayce's walking the streets. For the record there were a few Apple laptops with their glowing clam-shell logo covered with some non-corporate-brand logo.

My mom's been working at libraries on and off for a really long time now. Not too surprisingly she somehow stumbled onto this cool artist, Jim Rosenau. He makes a variety of arty things from books.

Boingboing's linked an LATimes article on the subject of Guerrilla Gardening. Individual property rights are always bumping up against the good of the collective society. There usually aren't many people standing up for the latter and those that do aren't usually empowered to make a change. There's something very libertarianly socialist about this guerrilla gardening concept though and it seems like it's generally a positive thing, besides maybe police hassles.

There are definitely some areas in my metro region (Portland), city (Tigard), neighborhood (Bull Mountain) and my neighbor's yard (I'll leave him be) which could use guerrilla gardening. I might just have to try to tackle one occasionally!

Last I knew Verizon was still a fan of a tiered-internet. On the other hand they're now saying at least when it comes to blocking copyrighted materials they wont tier things.

Their VP of PR specifically has said, “We generally are reluctant to get into the business of examining content that flows across our networks and taking some action as a result of that content."

I'm not sure how they can say that and at the same time be for a tiered internet. Unless they envision that as discriminating against traffic by source and destination only and not content? But some of the other quotes in the NYT article make it seem like Verizon may be moving more towards accepting that they're in the business of selling pipes and the more and fatter pipes customers want because of a thriving internet means more business for them.

I decided to glance at my blog's google analytics reports and noticed a lot of recent hits on an old post about a third Portishead album. Made me think a bunch of people must be searching for info on a third Portishead album. And lo...they were. And there is one.

Can't wait to hear it in April. And this might be the year to trek to Coachella if they're truly to be one of the headliners. Maybe they'll come to Portland, Oregon...We have some nice cozy music halls.

This link came across my feed reader. It's not quite clear where it's going as only the first two of five parts have been released as of today. But the Black Hole looks like a really cool store to tool around in for a while. Their eBay store doesn't appear to work, but it would be so much more fun to see the place first hand anyway.

I love to bash EMI because they were at the forefront of corporate attempts at stifling the interactions and subsequent creative possibilities in a networked world when they forced OLGA off the net in 1996. There's no coincidence between Radiohead's contract with EMI expiring, Radiohead shocking the music industry by offering it's upcoming album direct to listeners at whatever price they're willing to pay (or 40 pounds if you want it on physical media including all sorts of fancy extras), and EMI's new private equity owner saying they must embrace digital music or die. But with that guy being rumoured to be planning to sell EMI to Warner and EMI's long history with fighting modernisation, I'm not expecting much here beyond words and further attempts at mildly warping their business into something internet related...no fundamental shift in how they do business.

If the press release were dated a day earlier I'd have been sure it was a joke. But it appears the anti-market EMI corporation may be the first major to start getting with the digital future. It might still be cheaper to just buy the physical media though...depends on whether they do $9.99 albums DRM free too.

And it is a bit odd that they'd have the DRM versions at all. Is $0.30/track enough to discourage somebody who wants to pirate music? No. Are people wanting to save a few cents a track seen as implicitly pirate-prone? Must be. The majors sure relate to their customers in strange ways.

Am I the only one really bothered by This American Life's television debut being on Showtime? This American Life is part of the reason I contribute to public broadcasting. I'm paying for them to go out and find and record these amazing stories. Yet now it turns out they had video cameras along too and if I want that version of the story I have to pay extra for Showtime?!?! With a regular audience of 1.7million people, luring people to Showtime seems like a great way to make somebody gobs of money. But I thought public broadcasting was about bringing compelling media to the public, not delivering a compelled public to a private media money making venture. I'd pay to see the show on public TV, but not on Showtime.

I was surprised to stumble on this today. The actual write-up is a good read...thoughtful and written in a way I'd expect a large portion of Apple's critics (eg: esp. the techno-illiterate politicians) as well as their customers to be able to fully understand. And Jobs squarely plants the problem in the court of the big labels (for those who didn't already clearly get the bloc power they hypocritically wield)!

This is exactly the type of message that you'd expect to deflect the European political pressure on Apple around its DRM. And exactly the thing to increase pressure on the majors to catch up with reality. Or the thing to increase political pressure in a more appropriate place (eg: how about these ideas for a start) towards helping the majors get a clue.

Maybe I was on the leading edge in witnessing EMI's attack on OLGA (over a decade ago already?!), but I think the rest of Apple's billion downloaders are starting to get the situation and are beginning to see the anti-market, anti-competitive, anti-creative state of copyright this DRM facade masks.

I can't wait to watch how this plays out! It made the tail end of Marketplace today and I'd expect it prominently in the press tomorrow.

Naturally found via BoingBoing, these clockwork cufflinks are cool way to show your inner steampunk.

Or maybe 2 RBI home run even.

The iPhone covers my desire for a combined media player, phone, low end camera and PDA. And good battery life. I'll be buying one of these. Especially since the wifi should mean I'm not getting reamed by ATT/Cingular data service. Can't wait to see the reviews when they start getting into people's hands and how they truly work.

And the AppleTV (not sure how to write that in text without the Apple icon)...No need for them to buy out or partner with Tivo now that ITMS has so much traction. I'll likely go for this device although 720p isn't ideal and I'd also need a machine on which to run iTunes. But given I'd pay about a grand a year to DirectTv for a stream from them with HD and Tivo support (plus nearly that up front for an HD Tivo) and I only watch a few hours of TV a month...I should be buying Apple boxes instead and especially be buying into Apple's ala carte model. I always wanted ala carte channel pricing for TV, but I watch so little, I may as well pay per show. It's got to be a lot easier and likely cheaper than MythTV given how little I watch TV.

I just discovered (yes..BoingBoing) the artwork of Mike Libby. I love it.

I think my parents have been preoccupied with death the last few years. And their talk is wearing off on me. Whoever gets the task of liquifying whatever estate I may have eventually upon death will sure think I was one wierd patron of the arts.

It's been over a decade since I first read Applied Cryptography. Bruce Schneier's been in the news more and more during that time, as security becomes something about which more people are aware. He's always contributing intelligent thoughts to the dialogue, like today's entry on his blog.

Two weeks ago Jenn and I flew down the Bay Area and as we were leaving PDX there were some gulf war vet helicopter pilots hurrying to finish their coffees so they could board the plane sans liquid. One of them said, "When are people here going to realise they're just terrorising themselves?"

I couldn't decide what category to blog this under but culture seems as good as any.

Slashdot's got two good links on the DRM fromt today.

First, Yahoo's actually taking a stand against DRM "protected" music! This is a great quote:

"As you know, we've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now. Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day -- the Compact Disc), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform. We've also been saying that DRM has a cost. It's very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We'd much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway!"

The second article on /. gives a deeper dive into just that. An analysis of DRM and how it has been circumvented.

Last week Cringely had an interesting column on the issue of network neutrality.  Personally I believe network neutrality is critical to innovation in much the same ways open APIs and interfaces and the openness of open source and the commons are.

The telcos seem to be bent on returning us to a simple central controlled broadcast-information society instead of that which the internet has evolved into.  The reality is that decentralisation and participation (peer to peer in its broadest sense) is what the internet is all about today.  And it's reasonable to see that changing substantially without net neutrality.

I really like Cringely's use of the phrase "billable event."  It really summarises what the telcos want and need in order to drive growth and increases in profit.  They aren't content to be the conduits that they are.

The interesting twist I see in this is that while the opponents of opensource and the commons like to dismiss these as socialist or communist pipe dreams, a concept like community funded infrastruture allows the infrastructure to sustain a proper marketplace instead of the infrastructure sustaining a centralised, command economy which is what the telcos have had and want to consolidate.

Wired has an interview with some people from the party. Cool to see them continuing to generate press.

I heard an interview (link worth following for her rapping on SNL) of Natalie Portman on NPR a week or two ago and it made the movie sound somewhat interesting although I didn't have a clue about what the movie was really about. Being completely out of the loop on what Hollywood is pushing for movies these days I didn't even know the movie had been out a couple weeks and was making good money. In short I liked the movie. Seeing the credits I wasn't surprised to see it was done by the Wachowski brothers. They seem to be into dystopian future underdog antihero action flicks.

While I don't follow Hollywood too closely I'm surprised after having seen it that this movie isn't causing more of a stir in places that I do pay attention. Maybe it's that the conservatives and Bush-lovers think it's just more of the typical liberal/Hollywood propoganda? The parallels and implicit condemnation of the direction America is being led are so blatent I'd think it would be annoying more people...

Portishead's Dummy was rolling through my iPod this afternoon and I decided to do a quick google to see if they're up to anything new these days. And they are!

There's a new link on www.portishead.co.uk to a myspace page has a month old blog entry from Geoff Barrow which says they're working on their third album. Given past hoaxes/rumours of album work underway I was skeptical. But bethgibbons.com shows a bunch of recent activity and also lists her current status as working on a new Portishead album. Their wikipedia entry also lists some recent activity.

Sweetness!

As if this wasn't bad enough looking a month ago...now it's just sounding like total science fiction is coming out of Congress. And from my own Senator now!

Granted Boing Boing's got a sci-fi writer posting, but the EFF's info isn't exactly heart warming by comparison either.

Time to start making phone calls.

In the flurry of legislative action yesterday was a hidden gem from the House for the content industry in the form of HR-4569. Not too surprisingly with a huge amount of last minute legislation yesterday Thomas is way behind today so it's hard to get much detail beyond the above mirrored text of the legislation and the public outcry and the MPAA chair calling it "very important piece of legislation."

I had to write my Representative the Honorable David Wu a note in response.

Jenn's sister came to visit this week for a belated birthday present to see Madeleine Peyroux. The show got changed last minute-ish from the Schnitz to the Aladdin and Susie Suh was added to the bill. Both were great, but Susie's performance really stole the show for me. Plus when she was chatting during the set and said something like, "Nobody probably knows me..." I whistled and she laughed and said, "Well maybe one person." It's always cool when you can see an artist in a small venue and get a little interaction with them.

I actually got Susie's signature on her "CD" (crippled Sony fake-CD) and Jenn bought one of her t-shirts and got it signed too. Chatted briefly and told her I was "the one person" and she asked where I'd heard of her...told her KCRW. I'm not sure if I'll actually send the disc into Sony for a non-crippled rebate one or what since it's now autographed. It's just the booklet, so maybe I can hold onto that much?

Anyway, the thumbnail is Susie and the big picture is Madeleine. Yes cameraphones take sucky pictures. They record even suckier audio (terrible clip of awesome trumpet player in Madeleine's backing band). I should say though that cell phones are great when you need to google for Wesley's phone number which isn't in my phone for some reason so I can ask him how the Sony "cd" return program works (ie: will it work if I have no receipt because I bought the disc for cash at the show).

Being a fan of Aaron McGruder's strip I had to tell my Tivo to record the new kid in the Adult Swim lineup. I sure wish my local newspaper carried this strip. For some reason I don't tend to read comics online (besides UserFriendly and MegaTokyo). Anyway I like what I've seen of the Boondocks animated show, but the kids voices...they just don't feel right.

And speaking of animation...My remote's custom set to have the 30second skip forward unofficial option, but I still see enough of a commercial in the 10th of a second it takes to hit the button repeatedly to know what they're trying to sell me in most commercials. While skipping forward to get back to Boondocks I saw a commercial for Æon Flux, stopped...backed up and watched. I blogged almost a year ago and my skepticism on whether they could convert to live action seems to be founded. The trailer looks horribly cheesy.

Scott sent me a hilarious piece of cardboard from a cigarette package. He and Charlotte are in Sri Lanka with a tsunami relief organisation. I wonder if this is real or a bootleg pack of fags? If they were fake like Mike shoes you'd think they'd have a Marble lable instead of Marlboro. But maybe they weren't trying to make a joke.

There's also another funny picture I snapped at the Alaska Airlines terminal in San Jose back in August and forgot on my camera...

I used to hate scrabble. My mom always whooped everybody at it and Boggle. But then my grandparents got me into doing the Jumble (I have to get the newspaper since Macromedia can't make reasonable plugins for linux) regularly. With some practice my mind got to where it could deal with this sort of pattern detection. And now I actually like scrabble.

This would be a funny diversion from the usual scrabble. They've got a pretty funny copyright notice too:

© 2005; Wiremelon. Don't steal our stuff. HEY! I saw that, Mr. View Source! I'm serious. Really, it's not very interesting. If you need to view OUR source you're in pretty bad shape. Well all right, what's a few DIVs and ULs between friends? Hey, can I crash on your couch tonight?

Blogging meets podcasting meets TV is what I've been thinking since stumbling onto Current a week or so ago. Somehow I must've missed all the press and commentary (this guy's done very good PBS stuff) around the premiere of "Al Gore's new network" earlier this summer. It seems like a very hip/cool and also meanful/powerful medium.

From the bits that I've watched I can agree with the criticism in the above links. But I do have to say the Katrina coverage has been very insightful. It's as close as I've seen on TV to the type of detail that BoingBoing has been publishing. I kind of see it as an extension of the change in perception to blogs that has started to happen the last few weeks also thanks to Katrina. When the mainstream press is failing, alternative sources will become popular. It's the market at work.

One definite negative though is that I haven't watched much and have seen lots of repeat content. Some of which was actually mentioned in the above links from earlier this summer. Hopefully they start getting more people submitting so they can have more fresh content. But then that starts to beg the question...who exactly is holding the editorial control? Are submitted pods censored or recut? And since it's Al Gore's network, presumably there will be considerable bias in what is and isn't aired?

How long until there's a conservative channel seeking to balance current.tv's content?

I just love the Onion. Who better to remix the current news and put a smile on one's face in a hard time? The media and our leaders certainly make it easy for the Onion folks though.

I've been in the bay area for a few days and now that I've lived in Portland for a year I can't help shaking the feeling that I'm just in a suburb of LA. I used to really like it here. Strange. Oh well...at least it all it does is rain in Portland so most Californians couldn't stand it.

Seriously though I think I almost dislike it here. I definitely don't miss it, which I really expected would be the case.

I've read many things over the last number of years and heard people talk about the "information wants to be free" motto being wrong and even dangerous. For some reason though it still sort of resonates with me. Maybe I'm just nostalgic for the irrationally exuberant and hopeful days of the early internet and pre-late-90s bubble/implosion?

Last week there was an announcement of a new "planet" orbiting the sun. Interesting enough I suppose.

But the revelation this week that this is a two year old discovery forced into the open by hackers is amazing. What benefit is there in holding information close like this? Time on telescopes is a scarce commodity and supplementing the initial observations surely would have been much easier after an announcement.

To me this is a perfect example of how proprietary information slows the progress of discovery and innovation.

It's also surprising how little has changed compared to a decade ago. Eleven years ago John Perry Barlow made five points that hopefully wouldn't sound too stupid in 50 years:

• "In the absence of the old containers, almost everything we think we know about intellectual property is wrong. We're going to have to unlearn it. We're going to have to look at information as though we'd never seen the stuff before." -- It's slowly becoming clear to a more broad class of people that what we have isn't working well.
• "The protections that we will develop will rely far more on ethics and technology than on law." -- That protections will be in ethics and technology instead of law sounds like Lessig and is about where we are today, although the ethics and technology are being driven by corporate interests rather than individuals or the public/commons.
• "Encryption will be the technical basis for most intellectual property protection. (And should, for many reasons, be made more widely available.)" -- Not very good progress on this front, although criminals seem to get it. Which is part of the problem.
• "The economy of the future will be based on relationship rather than possession. It will be continuous rather than sequential." -- This sounds a lot like IBM's "on demand" and "business transformation" stuff.
• "And finally, in the years to come, most human exchange will be virtual rather than physical, consisting not of stuff but the stuff of which dreams are made. Our future business will be conducted in a world made more of verbs than nouns." -- There has been a lot of verbifying and the virtual continues to seep into our lives.

I've been watching for the Arcade Fire to start having more north american shows and they have! There aren't many listed at this moment, but Portlands on the list for 9/20/05 at the Crystal Ballroom. I don't see any online ticket sale. Guess I need to call the venue and see what the story is...I don't want to miss this show!

One of my favourite authors has an interesting take on the latest Star Wars installments. I was struck by the fairly overt comparison in Episode III to the current geopolitical environment, but Neal Stephenson draws some different, additional parallels between the movies and "real life."

Cyberpunk writers tended to describe a future world that seemed dystopian to many. I generally found their stories hopeful and empowering, though. This piece is the first I've read where I got a real sense of a loss of hope from one. If geeks are the failing Jedi and the US is the Republic, I guess we can only hope for an eventual outcome like the one in Episode VI.

NPR affiliate WBUR Boston's "The Connection" aired yesterday a lengthy interview with Phil Torrone and Dale Dougherty of Make and Rosalind Williams from MIT.

It's interesting to hear that beyond encouraging people to get into DIY tinkering in the digital age, the creators are disturbed by consumption and the throw away culture. I hadn't thought of that angle. They definitely provide a forum that will encourage some serious innovation and interesting advances if legislation and the producers (and the negative connotation that the public tends to hear in "hacking") don't manage to squash it.

If nothing else they've encouraged me to fiddle with some things I wouldn't have otherwise.

This is mostly a redux of similar writing by Lessig lately, but it's cool to see it in the Tech Review which probably hits a different set of eyeballs than Slashdot and Groklaw.

There's a rebuttal and a rebuttal to the rebuttal. Epstein maybe does a better job than some market apologists, but really just props up the status quo for no clear reason, especially with his section on buying Microsoft Office for $500 and that being such a compelling benefit to productivity to more than offset the cost.

Personally that is a huge issue to me (and the tangential issue of why people supposedly can't yet productively use OpenOffice, which the press consistently portrays as seriously defficient). I know how to use a word processor. I started on AppleWorks on an Apple ][, moved on over time through WordPerfect on Netware and DOS, various Microsoft, Lotus and now open productivity applications. Aside from embedded images, AppleWorks was capable everything twenty years ago for which I use office apps today. Maybe I had to stick in a separate floppy to launch the spell checker and turn over that floppy for the actual spell check, but still. It worked and well considering the option of writing things by hand or on a typewriter...that difference was the primary difference in productivity.

I'm not sure what that old AppleWorks version would cost today given inflation and maybe in constant currency Microsoft Office is cheaper. But it sure seems like the 99% of features that most users rely on should now be commodity. Is that extra 1% worth the $500? And are those features truly ones that significantly matter to productivity? I say no.

Following up my post a couple days ago on their new Longhorn advertising comes more insanity. I saw this on Slashdot the other day, but didn't really think about it too much. It's the same old Microsoft, right? But then today I stumbled across this treatment of the issue which mentioned that the rules require submissions be the "sole work and creation of the person submitting the film."

So Microsoft is running advertising that encourages customers' mixing and mashing, but at the same time is running contests which discourage it. Okay...

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. But it's interesting because just yesterday I was talking to somebody about numerology and this weekend Wait Wait had a poke at the 666-ers (see round 3, first item).

If nothing else, it probably means I'm boring.

I've been hearing about the controversy around the move to make libraries more "friendly" and "modern", because my mom works at a library and her town is planning a big fancy new library. Today Marketplace has a segment on the trend.

Especially for people living in sprawling suburban type cities, redefining the library as the community hang out makes sense to me. When you consider that people don't necessarily interact a lot in our society (neighbors don't know neighbors) and that there are plenty of commercial social scene type places (ie: wifi laundromats, Starbucks, Borders/Barnes&Noble, &tc.), it's unique to see a specifically non-commercial option.

If this makes the library a community focus, the library will be better funded by the local tax authority and in turn the community will have more resources at their library from which they can benefit. This in contrast to the current trending towards irrelevancy situation of existing libraries. That new library in Redding will replace an old one, with lots of dusty old books (but popular computers) and extremely limited business hours. Here's hoping the investment in the community returns a dividend.

If the popularity of my local Beaverton and Tigard libraries (nice new branches) is any indication, I think the new trend will prove itself.

The other day I was watching TV and saw a new Microsoft commercial. At first I didn't know what the ad was for, but was curious because it was clearly pushing some sort of technology and they were talking about ripping and mixing and mashing music, among other types of creative production. I was thinking it was strange that a prime time TV ad slot would promote such contentious [sic :)] practices. After a little while the ad turned out to be from Microsoft of all places, touting the features of their three year old Windows XP. They've got a new big ad campaign apparently since Longhorn's so delayed. I wish I could find an online copy of the commercial as I'd like to hear their spiel again and pay closer attention as it seemed so disingenuous in light of all the IP control that Microsoft and other big media companies are pushing (yes I consider Microsoft a content/media company not an irrelevant technology/software company).

Anyway, this BoingBoing post today reminded me of the ad because of it's mix/mash/collage focus.

Yesterday I volunteered for National Engineers Week at Woodmere Elementary. I did around an hour session with a mixed class of fourth and fifth graders that went into playing tic-tac-toe by a formula (ie: software program) to see what made one formula better than another. It was a challenge to explain it and go through it in that little amount of time (and during the last hour before they left for a three day weekend), but it was fun.

I need to look into volunteering at a school regularly. It was fun and I think they'd get more out of an ongoing relationship than just a short visit once a year.

Possibly the most memorable part was when I first walked in...the teacher was talking about different kinds of engineers. Presumably they'd been talking previously about hydroelectric power or something like that and hydro meaning water. At any rate she asked a leading question, "Does anybody know what a hydraulics engineer would be?" One lil' homie raised his hand and volunteered that hydraulics were what you use on your low rider.

It's interesting to read that Lessig's thoughts are increasingly about free culture and how non-free technology is hurting the advance of culture. But at just the same old technology and economics level where Bill Gates and his like are arguing freedom is bad, the article has a great quote regarding why Brazil has so gotten into free software and the creative commons...

It's interesting to watch communities develop online and especially see them increasingly exerting influence in realspace. Firefox supporters have a great campaign going. Star Trek fans have done similarly with an LA Times add. Now Fawlty Towers fans have bought the hotel inspiring the show.

or loose your job! It's about time more employers step up and actively encourage change. The news was all teary eyes about Johny Carson's death, but it wasn't so prominent that he died of emphysema related complications (ie: smoking). And he was a lucky one...he lasted many years.

This morning I was driving to work and saw a guard at a public transit station smoking. Public servants shouldn't be allowed to smoke while in uniform. That seems like publically funded advertising for cigarettes and targetted at minors (who idolise for instance police and firefighters).

Yo, check it.

Feed an url (eg: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/) into this.

Fo shizzle!

I got an email about this thing and then noticed it on an urban legends web site. On the surface it's a nice feeling idea. And out of coincidence mostly it happens that I didn't actually spend any money on the day of the inauguration. But that's not really all that different than many days and doesn't amount to anything.

BoingBoing's got linked some good commentary on it.

The CIA's updated its period forecast (published every 5 years) on the world 15 years in the future. Their thoughts on the year 2020 are interesting. It's a mixed bag. Some really interesting and positive things happening and some scary.

Reading about all the upheaval and change they expect it's fairly amazing that they say they don't expect major conflict (ie: world war), but cite the US's opportunity to guide things for the better. I've worried since Sept. 11, 2001 that the country's foreign policies could end up on a slippery slope dragging the world toward a broad war and Bush has continued to scare me.

I'm glad the government's updated their ideas on what we should be doing for a healthy life, but it makes me feel that much more unhealthy.

This evening's All Things Considered has a segment (actually two) which dives into the issues around media and indecency. Has some very interesting points. TV definitely isn't what it used to be. Weren't those ratings boxes and the v-chip supposed to fix all of this?

The second one is especially interesting. I think I was exposed to pretty tame music as a child, partly because my dad went on a hard core religious kick. It's amazing for me to listen to the lyrics of the popular music of the 70's and 80's. Yet the world survived.

Still, it's got to be tough to be a parent and manage all of this and guide a child through it to a set of solid values and morals.

I'm still trying to understand what my own personal thoughts on IP are (the laws are obviously seriously skewed, but is proprietary inherently ok, not-ok, somewhere in between?). Today's announcement by IBM that they'd open a bunch of patented software was picked apart by Information Week as running counter to IBM's presumed need to have strong IP protection, as evidenced by their trying to influence European legislation in that area. I'm not sure there's really a contradiction there. It's a big company so who knows how linked events are.

But as an "outside" observer, IBM is talking a lot about services built on open infrastructure. Even Richard Stallman recently said that software can be proprietary without being antisocial:

Custom software is meant to be used by one client. There's no ethical problem with custom software as long as you're respecting your client's freedom.

So for IBM to talk about open infrastructure and custom solution services and then apparently back that with actions, but still want IP controls for that custom slice of software doesn't seem that surprising or out of line to me.

I'm glad to hear this (and this). These "left-right shout-fest" shows are just as trashy these days as the stuff that gets the real complaints. I'm glad John Stewart ripped them up.

CD sales keep going up, despite years now of claims from the RIAA, MPAA and misguided artists (ie: LLCoolJ) that the sky is falling. The article notes it's the first increase in sales in four years, but at the same time each year music sales are driving record profits.

Personally I think that says album price increases are a bigger threat to sales than technology.

The labels need to learn to embrace technology instead of concentrating on milking the status quo.

It was a cool animated spot on MTV's Liquid Television and now it's going to be a movie.

I don't know about the costumes though. That picture just doesn't look right, although the animated costumes might get the movie an X rating.

This flash movie is interesting in as much as it echos some things I've blogged recently and which seem to be becoming a worry a lot of people have, namely that the technological filtering is dumbing us down. But it's overly negative. Any change can have positive and negative impacts. That a dialogue is starting on these issues is a good sign that it will all work out. There's sci-fi, like David Brin's Earth (sorry couldn't resist using Googlezon) or novels by William Gibson and Neal Stephenson and other works of "classic cyberpunk", which shows some positive posibilities for a connected future. Plus there's a lot wrong with the claims and suppositions in this "documentary."

Out as in available, not out of style (sorry, just finished book the sixth in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events).

This is always a thought provoking list(scour the page, figure out how to log in and find the actual list...annoying) of big ideas from the year culled from all manner of walks of life and spheres of influence. It's a long list, but read on for the ones that resonate with me.

Powell Jr. claims he's just doing what the people want. Yet it turns out he and his agency are pretty much just doing the bidding of the PTC (Parents Television Council). At the moment it looks like their site has been slashdotted, so I can't read more about what they stand for aside from via google.

At this point I'd assume they stand for everything a democracy is not, based on how their complaints have manifested in FCC actions.

A certain somebody keeps telling me I'm a grinch and a bah-humbug. But what better way to bring about some holidy cheer than by going shopping at Target? The holiday specials abound.

Elena of Kids of Speed fame is back with a new photo journal. Following her hauntingly insightful trips through the ghost town of Chernobyl is a similarly haunting romp through the historic war zones around Kiev known as the Serpent's Wall.

There's always talk about what the dominant language of the world is or will be. France is a fierce promoter of their language, but recently promonent French have started arguing that English should actually be mandatory in their schools. I don't quite get how or why, but I found this article linked in the news on finance.yahoo.com under IBM. It presents an interesting theory that India will emerge as the largest populace (english speaking at that) and their rise will pull China towards english as well.

The world is and will always be a dynamic mixing pot. It will be interesting to see what these cultures bring to the language over time. Currently the results are interesting.

Eweek is running a story about what is presumed to be a looming battle between Apple and Microsoft for the online and portable music markets. I'm not convinced there will be a one or the other winner take all fight.

Consumers want choice, but they also want simplicity. Apple tends to win when the latter is the major deciding factor (whether the simplicity is genuine or percieved). Successful markets are open, but the music industry has tried to stay closed as music has moved online, so the iPod model is probably closer to their heart.

To me the simplicity of having a standard open file format (can continue to choose Apple hardware or use something else) and a subscription model seem like what must ultimately win. Apple's price model is unbelievably expensive. I'd love to have access to complete libraries for say $20/month. The music industry would get more money than they get from me currently (ie: I don't average 12 CD purchases per year). I wouldn't have to worry about loosing old formatted "data" (ie: tape, 8-track, vinyl, cd, mp3, &tc.), but the music industry likes that happening. But what's the alternative? Artists see the future and don't have a need for the big distributers. Consumers are happy enough to skip the distributer (ie: pirate music as CD prices climb and the industry cries foul despite record profits each year).

Consumers want music, want new music regularly and want simplicity. Microsoft can't own that any more than Apple or the major music labels. Apple and the labels will have to adapt, but that doesn't imply a new Microsoft media monopoly.

Seriously though...smart kids rule. And they're extending their rule to Jeopardy.

relax, we understand j00