Briefly About the Show

I'm not usually really big on social networking sites. This would include Friendster, MySpace, Tribe and so on. I subscribe to each so that I can post announcements about shows and get to more people doing so, but why use the site to talk with friends when I have their fucking email addresses? (Yes, I swear a lot)

Then I went over to Digg.com and fell in love. Digg is not really a social networking site, but I guess you could kind of lump it into that category. Rather than try to explain it, I'll just paste a blurb from the site itself.

What is digg? Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

The thing I like about the site though is that you can subscribe to the main page like any blog and you get the best and most interesting news out there. If you've never heard of Digg, go check it out. And hey, add me to your friends list - not that I'll ever communicate with you through it, but isn't it fun to have friends and fully document the fact?

Posted by ZeroLogik at 9:25 PM | Permalink

If you've read any of my posts in the past, then you know my strong and sometimes downright militant views towards the RIAA and their greed driven attitudes.

Here's the article from The Register that got me going this time ;)

Well, not that it will make any impression on them I'm sure, but let me just say now that if the iTunes store shuts down or starts charging more than $0.99 a song I will never buy another CD or any music in my life.

Strong remarks, but I'll stand by it. Recently Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) was addressing the music industry's recent push to charge more than $0.99 a song on the iTunes music store. Why? Greed. At least that's what Jobs says and I tend to agree with him.

You don't believe me? Right now, the consumer pays a fair price for legal digital downloads of music. But that's not enough because in America a company is not successful unless it's making MORE profit than the year before. That means cutting costs (how much it takes to make a song) or raising prices or some combination of the two every year. This is over simplified of course, but essentially true.

And these executives are F-ing clueless when it comes to the "mysterious internet" and how to use it to make money. Here's one gem from a music exec:

"It's going to be difficult to get the consumer to stop thinking about owning music, and think about paying for participation instead," said one executive.

Uh, hi... remember me? I just BOUGHT a CD from the store. Are you saying I don't own it, but I merely rented it? I should own the copy of the song that I bought. Sure, sharing is illegal, but if you're going to severely overcharge for a single song or CD, then I'm going to steal.

Yes, I said steal. Oh, but Shane, you're a sinner and will go to hell. Yeah, I'm sure God has a huge Excel spreadsheet and just adding all of us who take a little back from the RIAA who is being blatantly greedy and ripping us off in the first place.

Here's something else that's laughable. Michael Nash, head of Warner Music was quoted as saying...

Very few people people buy music from digital downloads.

I guess when the iTunes music store hit 50 million songs purchased in March of 2004, that was mere pittance? I'd love to sit in on one of their meetings. Anyone at the RIAA want to invite me next time? I'm there.

Posted by ZeroLogik at 11:16 PM | Permalink

I can't say this news surprises me, but developers hang on to your tits. FEMA has released a registration site for disaster victims to locate and communicate with loved ones who may be missing and (being the geniuses they are) they have released a site that is only compatible with IE on Windows. The compatibility issue is because of some Javascript only IE can run that's used on the site. They also claim the same functions could have been written to support all browsers, but were not.

FEMA says the site was originally an in-house tool and only released to the public to serve this purpose. Okay, that's a fair statement, but here's a question... "Why in the fuck are you just now creating a website for this purpose period?" Remember Andrew & 9-11? Guys... you're the agency for federal emergencies, you have to think ahead. We can't apply bandages to every wound and expect to stop getting cut so deep.

This bit of news infuriates me on two levels... first of all - in today's online environment you should NEVER have a site that is IE only. Sorry, it's just moronic. Argue the point all you want, but limiting your audience when there's no need is not smart. And second, this just goes to illuminate the issues FEMA is having in general on a more specific scale.

I'm not saying it's all FEMA's fault. I think the ultimate blame rests on George Bush's shoulders. He weakened the agency and their ability to respond when he wrapped it up with Homeland Security. Now we have the head of Homeland Security doing more of the coordination than the previous heads of FEMA. At least this is what news organizations have been reporting as a possible cause for the delays in response.

I just hope people don't merely pay the issue lip service as I'm doing. It's time we held people accountable!

Here's the original story from ArsTechnica.

Posted by ZeroLogik at 3:54 PM | Permalink

This simply fascinates me because of how effective it is. I've been trying to sell a brand new Dell laptop online for some time now. Started on eBay, then Craig's list and so on, but it has been very difficult for some reason. Anyway, one thing I've received from every posting is at least one email from a person in Nigeria (West Africa) saying he'd gladly pay more than I was asking for my laptop if I'd give him my address and name so he could send me a cashier's check.

Of course being that I'm not dumb, this seemed odd and suspicious. But then I thought, well if he sends a cashier's check how can I be at risk? I just wait for the funds to clear my bank before shipping the goods, right? Apparently not. I did some research cause I thought I must be missing something. Here's what I found...

The scam works like this. They send you a cashier's check in an amount greater than what your item costs and ask you to cash their check, keep the cost of the item and then send the difference to a friend of theirs they owe money to. Smart people wait to hear their money has cleared before sending the difference and it does, so they do.

Two weeks later their bank detects that the check is a forgery and they take the money back. Meanwhile you've send them whatever the difference was and are out that money.

It seems that the FDIC requires banks to clear money for a cashier's check in 1 to 5 business days, but it can actually take the bank 2 to 3 weeks to verify the check and funds from the sending bank - especially if it's out of the country. So that's the basis for the scam. Pretty damn good and I must admit I thought waiting for the money to clear would be enough to protect me.

Keep an eye out for this if you're selling stuff online. The only way to be safe is to deposit the check and then wait until the bank where the check originated clears the outgoing funds - then you can consider it as good as cash.

Read more on it here

UPDATE: Apparently government agencies are finally catching on to this problem. Read this CNN Story for more on that.

Posted by ZeroLogik at 8:46 PM | Permalink

Legal online music sales from stores such as iTunes have tripled thus far in 2005 from last year. You may think this would be something attributed to the fact that there are 3 times as many online music stores as last year and that the whole "legal" download approach is becoming easier every day. Nope!

According to the recording industry, the reason legal online music purchases are up is because of their lawsuits filed against individual file traders. Yeah, that's what it is. Do these fools really expect people to buy that shit?

First of all, according to BigChampagne's stats, show two times as many P2P users in 6/2005 than in 2003. Also, just think about it - the iTunes music store that opened in Europe added over $800,000 in revenue in the first week alone. Maybe the continued success of such stores had something to do with it.

I find it frightening that the RIAA would claim that their Gestapo lawsuits actually convinced individuals to start purchasing legally. Will they ever learn?

Posted by ZeroLogik at 9:20 PM | Permalink

For years now both the RIAA and the MPAA have been fighting a moronic war against file sharing and those who are involved in it. First they started going after Napster because they were storing tons of copyrighted material on their servers for people to share. Sure, that's fine - completely understand that.

Then software eliminated central servers so the files were only stored on individual computers. So they went after the individual people and bypassed due process and often our civil liberties. Bad PR, bad solution, a lot of mistakes, made me loath them.

Finally they went after software makers themselves who make applications that allow users to share files. The entertainment industry actually claims that making such software is an inducement of copyright infringement and therefore those who make such apps should be held accountable for what those who use their software do.

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States found in Hollywood's favor. To sum up, this decision means that if the RIAA or MPAA don't like a device or application that "they feel" makes it easy for users to steal copyrighted material, then they can and will sue and most likely win now that the Supreme Court backs it.

Have we all gone insane? Would you blame Panasonic when a person copies a TV show onto a VCR and sells it on the street? Would you blame Apple for people using the iPod to copy their stolen songs? Why not sue Dell because they make computers that "can" let people store kiddie porn?

It makes no sense. Sure, if the software was ONLY used for such things, but it's not. I download tons of legal content such as syndicated radio shows, free music from artists etc... all through P2P networks and file sharing utilities. But now we'll be lucky if all of our best apps for these purposes survive the coming lawsuits.

I think the RIAA and MPAA are missing "huge" opportunities for online delivery of legally protected content for a price. Instead they try to halt the industry as a whole because they don't understand it.

Anyone remember when Universal sued Sony when BetaMax was released? They said that such technology would destroy their business. Hmmm, I guess they were wrong then and they're wrong now!

Here's where I read about it: ArsTechnica Article

Your thoughts?

Posted by ZeroLogik at 8:23 AM | Permalink