Month: September 2006

Big surprise – Microsoft Zune to suck after all

Medialoper » Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM Link via Techdirt.

Everything I had heard so far about Microsoft’s supposed iPod killer was pretty good.  They were going to work out some way to reproduce your iTunes collection so you didn’t have to repurchase all those songs (Because Apple sure as hell wasn’t going to let you transfer those songs to a competitor’s product).  It really sounded like they were going to try and create a music player that didn’t assume everyone was a criminal.

Unfortunately, things are not what they seemed.  If you share a song via the Zune’s wireless sharing, it will apply DRM to the file so that you can only play the song for three days or three times.  I assume the intention here is to allow you to share a song with your friend so the friend will go buy his or her own copy.  I don’t necessarily have a problem with that – I understand that Microsoft and the record labels are just trying to make a buck, and I really do fully support capitalism.  But the article explains how this is a problem.  Let’s say I’m an amateur musician.  I create a new song on my computer by sampling my cat scratching in her litter box and set it to a beat of me kicking the wall as the Redskins got manhandled by the f’ing Cowboys.  I decide to apply a Creative Commons license to my work, because I think it would be cool if someone else sampled my work and used it in their own song, so long as they give me credit.  So, I have this song on my new Zune, and I’m playing it at a party.  Someone comes up to me and says, “Dude, I love that song!”.  He has a Zune, too, so I share the song with him.  Oops, Microsoft’s DRM just violated the Creative Commons license.  Creative Commons forbids any kind of DRM (Which is a large part of the reason I chose the license).

I haven’t bought a cd in close to a year.  The last cd I bought, in April of 2005, was Garbage’s Bleed Like Me.  I bought it without hearing it, because I really like Garbage.  I put it in my computer so I could rip the MP3’s FOR MY OWN PERSONAL USE (I wanted to make an MP3 cd to use in the car so I don’t scratch up the original, and so I can fit ten albums on one disc), and the cd told me to go jump in a lake.  My computer didn’t recognize the cd as an audio cd.  It would play it, but it didn’t see any rippable files.

What I really should have done was return the cd as defective.  I bought the cd assuming that I could listen to the music however I wanted.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.  I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll buy Garbage’s next cd.  Part of me wants to boycott it, but the other part of me knows that will hurt me (as I like the music) more than it hurts the company selling the cd.

The real problem here is that the music industry has made it so hard to buy a song once and use it in whatever legal way I want that I’ve just stopped buying music completely.  It sounded like Microsoft was going to help that problem, but apparently that’s not the case.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

A light bulb and a solar panel

EcoGeek – Technology for the Environment – Photovoltaic OLEDs: The Lightbulb Combines with the Solar Panel

So, some really smart people at Cornell have created organic LEDs that can both emit light, and create energy from light.  This makes a lot of sense – one doesn’t need nearly as many light-producing devices when it’s bright and sunny outside, but those lazy regular light bulbs just sit there during the day, mocking the environment.  Even the fancy CFLs don’t do anything useful when they’re not turned on.

I’ve always thought we should do more of this – collect energy that’s already there when we don’t need it so we don’t have to buy as much from the power company when we do.  Efficient appliances are great, but appliances that gather some or all of the energy they need to run are even better.

American Airlines gets their (its?) comeuppance

American Airlines to ‘Path to 9/11’ Producers: That Was US Airways, You Jackasses – Consumerist

So apparently the farce of a documentary called “Path to 9/11”, which seeks to politicize the tragedy even more than it is by spreading lies and deception, got some facts not related to Bill Clinton wrong.  You see, it wasn’t American Airlines who let Mohammed Atta through.  It was US Airways.

American Airlines are so pissed, they’re threatening to withdraw all advertising from the ABC network, and are also murmuring ominously about lawsuits.

I think this is merely karma for American Airlines.  If they hadn’t screwed up my bachelor party, or if they had been nice about fixing it, this never would have happened.

Email to the DMV

I have a question about right-of-way rules at the intersection of Leesburg Pike and Arlington Blvd (Seven Corners). If I am on Wilson Blvd and turn right onto Leesburg Pike West, there are two lanes going to a yield in order to go left onto Leesburg Pike East. There are four lanes on Leesburg Pike East. If I want to be in the second lane from the right after I turn onto Leesburg Pike East, should I be in the right or the left lane before the turn?If this is not the right place to come for laws such as this, could you possibly direct me to where I might find an answer?

Thanks very much

They say they’ll respond within two days. 8:22AM, the clock is running.

It begins . . .

For 1st Woman With Bionic Arm, a New Life Is Within Reach – washingtonpost.com

Today, the first woman gets a bionic arm to replace one she lost.  Sooner than you think, a plastic surgeon is going to amputate the arms of a rich bored kid to replace them with metal arms as a fashion statement or a “body upgrade”.

I think it’s great that people without limbs have this available – a partially thought-controlled replacement arm.  I know how difficult it can be to do normal tasks when I’ve just jammed a wrist or something – I can’t even imagine losing a limb.  And while this technology isn’t perfect, I imagine an imperfect arm is better than no arm.

But it’s a new world out there, and it’s only a matter of time before this is cosmetic surgery.  It remains to be seen whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

I will get to the bottom of this

I’m tired of this madness.  Every morning, I drop my wife off at the Metro and then drive to work.  Every morning, I think I’m in the correct lane to get where I want to go.  Every morning, someone in another lane thinks they have a right to be where I am.  I have to find out who’s correct.  Some woman flashed her high beams at me this morning in anger, and I’m almost positive I was right and she was wrong.

The intersection in question is Seven Corners, one of the most poorly designed sections of road I’ve ever seen.  The engineers responsible should never work in this field again.  If you leave the East Falls Church Metro down Sycamore/Roosevelt, then turn left onto Wilson, you arrive at a light.  Two lanes go right.  You turn onto what appears to be Leesburg Pike West, which has four or five lanes.  The two left lanes lead to a left turn yield.  This left turn takes you to Leesburg Pike East, which has four lanes.  Now, here is where the problem is.  If I see two lanes turning left into four, and I want to be in the lane second from the right, it makes sense that I get in the right lane before the turn, right?  There is no sign, and no line on the road to suggest anything.  And I seem to be the minority.  But if I get in the left lane, no doubt I will find myself again in the minority.  Because there are always fewer people who agree with you on matters like this, I’ve found.

In any event, if I was high-beamed in error, I’m very offended.  If I screw up and you flash your lights at me, I’ll take that.  I might even wave an apology.  I can admit when I’m wrong.  But I won’t stand for unwarranted high-beaming.  I just won’t stand for it.

I’m going to contact the DMV today and see if I can get to the bottom of this.

Perfect timing

Blogwise – Blog directory I just registered Complaint Hub with Blogwise, although it will take some time for a real person to verify it.  Perfect timing, I say, because I’m in a bit of a posting slump right now.  But I won’t be forever.  Maybe a flood of readers from Blogwise will arrive at the same time I break out of my slump with a half-dozen brilliant posts, sure to turn the casual blog browser into a lifelong fan. Or maybe not.

I seem to be numb

Nothing I read seems to inspire me to post since I got back.  I’m reading the same amount of junk online, but nothing catches my eye, saying, “Hey, jerk, blog about me”.  Nothing at all.  It can’t be that I’m tired of complaining, because that certainly isn’t true.  And it can’t be that nothing stupid is happening in the world, because that isn’t true, either.  I’m not still jet-lagged, since it’s been a week.

So I can’t explain my lack of posting.  I can just apologize to my legions of fans, and pledge to try and get inspired again soon.

Montgomery County doesnt want you to vote

Voting Delays at D.C., Md. Polls – washingtonpost.com “It was simply an unfortunate human error,” [Montgomery County] spokeswoman Marjorie Roher said. “We’re getting the cards out there as quickly as possible.”

An unfortunate human error?  Voting machines can’t be used without voter authorization cards.  Forty-five minutes before polls were scheduled to open, someone happened to check to see if those cards were there.  They were not.  I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but that seems unbelieveably incompetent.

It’s happening more and more (Or at least making the papers more and more) that we as a country seem to have a hard time setting up the means to vote.  There are few countries more technologically advanced than we are, and yet we aren’t capable of making a secure voting machine that keeps a record in case of any problems?

What about Jamie Foxx?

NFL.com – Minnesota at Washington Game Recap Big things are expected of the Redskins this year, a confidence reflected in an attendance of 90,608 that set a new record for the largest stadium in the NFL. Even Hollywood made an appearance: Actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were guests of owner Dan Snyder, who has recently entered into a partnership with Cruise’s production company.

Okay, let’s focus on the total whack job who hasn’t made a good movie in years instead of the recent Academy Award winner who visited the booth to, sort of, hang out with the fans.  I didn’t like Ray, although I thought Jamie Foxx did a great job.  I liked Tom Cruise a lot in Top Gun and in Top Gun II (on the ground) – Days of Thunder.  But that was before he took the path of Michael Jackson and Mel Gibson and forgot that he lived on Planet Earth with the rest of us.

It is nice that 90,000 fans showed up for the game.  Not so nice that our brand new offensive genius decided that the screen pass to Santana Moss needed to be run three times.  I wish Moss would stop breaking those for 15-20 yard gains so they’d realize that it’s really a terrible, terrible play.  If it works, and he makes 6 guys miss, he gains 20 yards.  If it doesn’t work, best case scenario is he loses five yards.  Worst case is it’s picked off, which is an almost guaranteed touchdown for the other team because there’s no one back there to catch the guy.

We still can’t run the ball, and Portis seemed pretty healthy.  If he wasn’t, Ladell Betts is a perfectly adequate backup.  The game was close from beginning to end, so there’s absolutely no excuse for running the ball only 18 times.

Anyway, it was a pretty disappointing game.  And I lost my fantasy football game, as well.  And our flag football game.  Everything football-related for me this past weekend was bad.  At least Virginia Tech won, but that was pretty much a given.