Reader.listen.watch

After trials, tribulations, false starts, wearing of sack cloth and much gnashing of teeth (and the blood of one dead chicken) I have successfully moved my weblog. For the past week I have been posting only at the new location. It works as expected. All is well.

New Home page.
New primary RSS.

Most of the archives will remain here in order to preserve as many links as possible, but I ran out of disk space and had to delete some of the early ones to keep the site under 40MB. All the archives are at the new site. Eventually I will come back here and put in re-direct meta-tags for both web browsers and RSS aggregators to automagically load the new location. In the meantime, if you have subscribed to a particular Category -- i.e. Patento.absurdium -- you can re-link to it via the Category links on the left.

Many thanks to:

Mark Pilgrim for design guidance and CSS creation
Erin Clerico at Weblogger.com for site hosting and comments configuration
Brent Ashley and Matt Mower for technical assistance
the entire Userland discussion group for moral support.

(drum roll please)

Now, on with the show.......................

Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Amazon Gains Bertelsmann as Services Customer

5:44:21 PM

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Amazon continues to sell their e-commerce expertise to the BigBoyz in the media biz. Sooner or later Amazon will be profitable, but I'm betting it won't be from sales of retail products. As I noted back in September, expect more of this as the reality continues to emerge than making a living selling products requires very different skills from running large-scale e-comm services.

Bertelsmann aligns with Amazon.
BERTELSMANN HAS TAPPED online retailer Amazon.com to help run Bertelsmann's music retailing Web site, CDnow, company representatives said on Tuesday.
The Gütersloh, Germany, media company has contracted Seattle-based Amazon.com to provide services to CDnow, according to spokespeople from both companies. Bertelsmann's BeMusic division oversees the CDnow music site and Bertelsmann's BMG Music Service record club.[...] [InfoWorld: Top News]

'Fair Use' Irrelvant and Improper

4:59:34 PM

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So says Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Frewing in preparations for the ElcomSoft trial. Frewing is one of the multitude of unelected public servants defending society against evil-doers who would thwart our God-given right to buy copy-protected digital media.

Major test of copyright law set to start. CNET Nov 25 2002 5:39PM ET
The first big courtroom test of a U.S. law that makes it criminal to offer software for cracking digital copyright protections should finally begin next week, after visa delays for two of the case's main players. [Moreover - IP and patents news]

Peter Chernin's Skewed Vision

8:54:55 AM

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Peter Chernin, the Fox exec who proclaimed the Internet a 'moral-free zone', prettied-up his plea for the tech crowd and made a keynote at Comdex. Chernin and his cohorts in the media industry have a seriously skewed view of the world and the people who live in it. Chernin rewrites a little history, to boot. Read Jonathan Peterson's extensive notes for more...

A solution to big media.
What happens when you blog a Fox executive? Blox

Jonathan Peterson deconstructs the comments of Fox CEO Peter Chernin in a Comdex keynote. Great stuff. Thanks for the link to David Weinberger, who adds his own astute comments.

It all comes down to the notion that programming is scarce or, at least, needs to retain the appearance of scarcity to sustain its value. In fact, if you make connections and let value flow, the investment in programming made today can be much more profitable than it is in the broadcast model.

[RatcliffeBlog: Business, Technology & Investing]

» Folks the solution is simple:

Stop watching TV.

Stop going to the Movies.

Don't buy Music, Videos, Games, Books or Magazines.

Don't by a Tivo, DVD player, stereo, WEGA tv, PlayStation

In a couple of years all the media-related companies (and their dependents) will be bankrupt. It might teach these guys that they need to treat us with a little respect if they want to survive.

We won't do it of course...
[Curiouser and curiouser!]

Thursday, November 14, 2002

Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act

3:34:07 PM

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Rep Rick Boucher is a good guy.

Slashdot | EFF Urges Support for Rep. Boucher's DMCRA.
DarkSparks writes "The EFF is urging everyone to contact their Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor Representative Rick Boucher and John Doolittle's recently introduced Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA, H.R. 5544), which would introduce labelling requirements for usage-impaired "copy-protected" compact discs, as well as make several key amendments to the DMCA, including affirming the right of scientific research into technology protection measures and affirming the right of citizens to circumvent technology measures to gain access to copyrighted works they've purchased."
[Privacy Digest]

Monday, November 11, 2002

One moment please while we check your settings...

11:54:44 AM

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Actually, all I get from MovieLink is that simple, insulting message. I guess they don't like my proxy filter. As for Windoze support, could this be because MS is the only OS vendor openly supporting the Hollywood cartel?

Earth to Hollywood: go adjust yourselves.
Movielink is here. Eric Norlin: the arrogance of this site is palpable.
And he's using Windows (I assume). Here's whatcha get if you don't:
Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:
You Need Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP
[The Doc Searls Weblog]

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

American Eclectic -- Nothing Really Matters

1:04:44 PM

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More eclectic audio from the BBC, courtesy of American Invisible. One of the things I like about AI is their constant search for intriguing content -- not just news or novellas, but genuinely interesting items across the spectrum.

I've listened to only the first episode, but so far this BBC series on mathematics is really good. Having read Fermat's Enigma and another, equally compelling book titled The Mystery of the Aleph about the discovery of infinity, I can say that the world of higher mathematics is indeed intriguing. The literary intelligentsia have nothing on these guys. The intrigue, subterfuge, and politics of their world is amazing. And the pressure they experience when their ground-breaking work is scrutinized is incredible. No wonder so many of them go mad. If you like wonderful human stories both books are recommended.

The first BBC episode is about the discovery of zero, hence my title -- Nothing Really Matters.

BBC

This is a new feature on American Invisible. One of the very best content providers in the world is the BBC. They broadcast some truly excellent material over the web. Here's a small example that I'm going to point to over the next five days. It's a wonderful series of 15-minute shows about mathematics presented by Simon Singh, author of Fermat's Last Theorem.

Here's Episode 1 of Five Numbers.
[American Invisible, Inc.]

Bookstore Information Architecture

10:41:18 AM

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The online bookstore experience is improving.

B&N Book Browser: Browsing facets that descibe books. I just looked at Barnes & Noble's Book Browser feature, which offers a way to browse books by subject and type of literature. The browser start page shows headings categorized under the different major sections you might find in the book store -- Fiction, Non-Fiction, Business. Each major section has subsections that closely match what I've seen in B&N Stores. After a few clicks the comparison to the excellent facet-based interfaces of Flamenco interface and FacetMap became abvious. [ia/ - news for information architects]