Tyromaniac : Truth will triumph in the end... after everybody has left

Updated: 10/20/05; 7:20:07 AM.

The Devil's Excrement

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Sunday, August 4, 2002

I've been thinking about Janis Ian articles and while the ideas express there and in other places are mighty fine, I've noticed I want a lot less than what they are proposing. What I want is for the return of a service that Mp3.com tried to provide and was sued for it. I want the right to immediately download mp3s of the songs of a CD I just bought. Thats it. No more. I want to go to Amazon or Mp3.com or Patilla.com (well, since I work in the last one, I want you to go there), pay for the CD I want and be able to hear it immediately. You can do it with software, why it's not possible with music? Because the music industry, not the artists, is holding us back. Let's get rid of the blocks...
5:44:49 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

Janis Ian's successful fallout. Janis Ian, the singer/songwriter/science fiction writer who posted an excellent rant about the music industry and file-sharing, has posted a roundup of the responses she received:

Emails received: 1268 as of 07-30-02 (does not include message board posts)
Number of times the article has been translated into other languages: 9. (French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Yugoslavian.)
Times AOL shut my account down for spamming, because I was trying to answer 40-50 emails at a time quickly and efficiently: 2
Winner of the Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is award: Me. We began putting up free downloads around a week after the article came out. We will attempt to put up one free download a week for as long as we can - and leave them all up.
Change in merchandise sales after article posting (previous sales averaged over one year): Up 25%
Change in merchandise sales after beginning free downloads: Up 300%
Offers of server space to store downloads: 31
Offers to help me convert to Linux: 16
Offers to help convert our download files from MP3 to Ogg Vorbix: 9
Offers to publish a book expose of the music industry I should write: 5
Offers to publish a book expose of my life I should write: 3
Offers to ghost-write a book expose of my life I shouldn't write: 2
Offers of marriage: 1
Number of emails disagreeing with my position: 9
Number of people who reconsidered their disagreement after further discussion: 5

(Thanks, John!) [Boing Boing Blog]
4:13:20 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

Bruce Sterling: A Contrarian View of Open Source. [Hack the Planet]
4:11:25 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

It's hard to explain to non-computer-users how irresponsible the Berman-Coble bill is. I think any analogy is likely to miss the mark. But enough people know about computer viruses, I think, to allow for a direct explanation, which might go something like this. "Computer viruses are dangerous, they can delete files, disclose private or sensitive data, and can even be used for terrorism on a global scale. Even if the entertainment industry feels that it can write a 'safe' virus (they haven't promised they will, btw), software always has bugs, and a bug in a virus could be devastating, not just to people who use music on the Internet, but for all people who depend on computers for their livelihood, or for medical care or education. Computer technology is used for many important things that have nothing to do with listening to music or watching movies. We can't let the entertainment industry dictate how our computers are used, or take control of our computers, or destroy their utility. We paid for our computers, not them." Okay, I know the wording is awkard, but there are a lot of ideas that aren't getting through in the articles about the Hollywood hacking bill. [Scripting News]
4:10:20 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

Salonblogs: The Devil's Excrement. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

He. That's my brother! He can also be reached at http://miguel.octavio.net/.
4:05:49 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

CompUSA overcharges for Jaguar

(In Case they find the mistake)
Mac OS X V10.2 Jaguar
CompUSA Price: $82,402.02

Choose your punch line:

Does that includes the car?
Wonder if I can get a $0.02 rebate...
Wow! Apple products really are more expensive

12:49:39 PM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

80% Of Incoming E-mail At Hotmail Is Spam [Slashdot]

Programs like Spamfire and, from what I hear, the upcoming version of Mail in Mac OS X (Jaguar) show that Spam is technically a solved problem. Now it's just a question of will... By the ISPs and by Microsoft. Once must users have Spam filters self updated through teh internet, spaming will decrease, because it won't be worth it.

Update: Spamfire is for macs only, if you use windows try Spamassasin, which I think works with Linux also.
This would also stop viruses, once a virus is discovered it won't even make it to your computer, just deleted in the server...Nice.

9:37:52 AM What do you think? ( Thoughts) Who linked? []

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